Theatre of the Absurd, and Harold Pinter

What is Theatre of the absurd?

Absurd theatre basically means that the human situation is meaningless. The 'absurd' plays by Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter and others all share the view that man is living in a universe where he is out of step. Humans live in an obscure place without purpose. Man is bewildered, troubled and obscurely threatened.

Where did the theatre of the absurd originate from?

The origins of the Theatre of the Absurd are rooted in the avant-garde experiments in art of the 1920s and 1930s. At the same time, it was undoubtedly strongly influenced by the traumatic experience of the horrors of the Second World War, which showed the total impermanence of any values, shook the validity of any conventions and highlighted the precariousness of human life and its fundamental meaninglessness and arbitrariness. The trauma of living from 1945 under threat of nuclear annihilation also seems to have been an important factor in the rise of the new theatre.

Harold Pinter
Pinter's career as a playwright began with a production of 'The Room' in 1957. His second play, 'The Birthday Party', closed after eight performances, but was enthusiastically reviewed by critic Harold Hobson.

In 1948–49, when he was 18, Pinter opposed the politics of the Cold War, leading to his decision to become a objector and to refuse to comply with national service in the military. In 1949 Pinter was fined by magistrates for having, as a conscientious objector, refused to do his national service. Pinter had two trials. "I could have gone to prison - I took my toothbrush to the trials - but it so happened that the magistrate was slightly sympathetic, so I was fined instead, thirty pounds in all. Perhaps I'll be called up again in the next war, but I won't go." Pinter's father paid the fine in the end, a substantial sum of money.

Harold Pinter's plays are noted for their use of silence to increase tension, understatement, and cryptic small talk. Equally recognizable are the 'Pinteresque' themes - nameless menace, erotic fantasy, obsession and jealousy, family hatred and mental disturbance.

Pinter's major plays originate often from a single, powerful visual image. They are usually set in a single room, whose occupants are threatened by forces or people whose precise intentions neither the characters nor the audience can define. The struggle for survival or identity dominates the action of his characters. Language is not only used as a means of communication but as a weapon. Beneth the words, there is a silence of fear, rage and domination, fear of intimacy.