more on Harold Pinter

[Denis Salter]

Hello.  A number of you has written to me offline about the
posting I made last week about Harold Pinter's return to the theatre as an actor.  Given the degree of interest, I thought the following account of his birthday party, which took place just days before the Nobel was announced, might engage your attention.
--Denis.


Yes I was at the recent 75th birthday celebrations
>> for Harold Pinter attending readings at the Gate
>> Theatre last Saturday and Sunday - the
>> overwhelming reception of the Dublin audiences, the
>> commitment of those involved, and the presence of
>> the author himself combined at times to elevate
>> these apparent 'readings' to the level of
>> extraordinary theatrical event. In the first, a
>> reading of Celebration, a stellar cast (including
>> Sinead Cusack, Janie Dee, Michael Gambon, Jeremy
>> Irons, Derek Jacobi, Stephen Rea and Penelope
>> Wilton) produced electric performances powered by a
>> palpable sense of the importance of the occasion and
>> the will of the audience, vehemently expressed. In
>> the second reading on Sunday, a much larger cast,
>> joined by Harold Pinter after the interval (frail
>> but steely), read from a wide selection of his
>> prose, poems and plays - at times serious, intimate
>> and at times appallingly funny.
>> At first, it seemed a little surprising that this
>> celebration was taking place outside the UK, but
>> remembering Pinter's long association with Ireland
>> (as actor and playwright), and of course his
>> passionate opposition to the policy of the UK
>> government, both the time and the place began to
>> seem peculiarly apt.
>> Michael Billington wrote in his perspicacious
>> contribution to the programme for the whole event:
>> 'No play survives if it doesn't resonate with our
>> own experience of life. That after all, is why we go
>> back to time and again to Hamlet, The Cherry
>> Orchard, and Waiting for Godot. And Pinter, by that
>> criterion earns classic status. From The Birthday
>> Party onwards he has pinned down the uncertainty and
>> fear that haunts human existence: also the way our
>> fundamental insecurity manifests itself in a desire
>> to achieve temporary domination over others.'
>> Through concentrating on the work, and through the
>> self-effacing role which Harold Pinter himself
>> deliberately took (moving slowly and painfully to
>> the front of the auditorium to shake hands with each
>> performer in turn after Celebration), this
>> celebration became as much a celebration of our
>> common humanity - expressed through theatre - as the
>> contribution of one outstanding man.
>>>>
>> Nicholas Wood
>> Central School of Speech and Drama
>> Embassy Theatre
>> Eton Avenue
>> London
>> NW3 3HY
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