"I AM well aware" said playwright Harold Pinter when accepting the David Cohen British Literature prize in 1995, "that I have been described in some quarters as being enigmatic, taciturn, terse, prickly, explosive and forbidding.
"Well, I do have my moods like anyone else," he continued sounding like one of his own characters, "I won't deny it. But my writing life, which has gone on for roughly 45 years and isn't over yet, has been informed by a quite different set of characteristics which have nothing to do with those descriptions. Quite simply, my writing life has been one of relish, challenge and excitement."
Words such as "relish", "challenge" and "excitement" may not be the first to spring to mind when considering the work of the prickly but hardly enigmatic Pinter, long established as not only Britain's leading dramatist, but as one of the most consistently interesting writers in international theatre.
His drama, rooted in his distinctive style of non communicating dialogue, has always balanced a dark comedy with moments of pathos, menace and silences more chilling than speech. Only Beckett, his most obvious master, has said more with fewer words. Although Pinter, robust looking, friendly, very Jewish and outspoken, is widely regarded as touchy, not even his critics could accuse him of being convoluted or pretentious as an artist.
Some observers, however, have smiled at the fervour of his political stances, particularly his hatred of US foreign policy. In a 1993 interview, Pinter is quoted as having said: "I believe the US is a truly monstrous force." Many members of Britain's arts community shared his dislike of Thatcherism without being as publicly forthright. Together with his second wife, writer Lady Antonia Fraser whom he married in 1980, he founded the 20 June group in 1988 with the objective of uniting writers and intellectuals in the battle against international tyranny.
Principals and moral choices have always been important to him. From an early age he had suffered anti Semitic intimidation. By 18 he had twice stood trial and was fined for boycotting National Service. Early in his career he stressed he was a non political writer. Yet as time passed, through plays such as Mountain Language (1988), One For the Road (1984) and Party Time (1991) he did become more blatantly political.
Aware that his work deals' with moral and emotional confusion, Pinter said in 1970 when accepting yet another prize, on that occasion in Germany: "I can sum up none of my plays, I can describe none of them, except to say: That is what happened. This is what they said. That is what they did."
Next week the Pinter Festival including The Collection, Ashes to Ashes, A Kind of Alaska and No Man's Land opens at Dublin's Gate Theatre. He is appearing in The Collection, and directs Ashes to Ashes. Having started out as a professional actor, neither acting nor directing should prove too difficult.
The son of a jobbing Jewish tailor and his Jewish wife, Harold Pinter was born in east London in 1930. There were no signs of a strong literary tradition in his family, although his mother enjoyed reading A.J. Cronin and Arnold Bennett, while his father liked Westerns. Any books present in the not too strictly Jewish household came from the local library and the playwright has described his own early reading as "rather shapeless and disjointed."
He attributes this randomness to his wartime childhood, which included two periods of evacuation. As an evacuee, he saw the sea for the first time. Back in London by late 1944, he was reading with a vengeance, discovering Joyce, Lawrence, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Rimbaud and Yeats. He was also writing poetry.
About 1951, he first read Beckett, having come across a magazine extract of Watt. The experience led him on a search of various libraries, none of which had any of Beckett's work. Eventually he found a copy of Murphy. As it had not been borrowed since 1938, he kept it. His acting had begun a few years earlier. At school, 15 year old Pinter was cast as Macbeth. It was a beginning.
A couple of disillusioning terms at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art helped decide him on joining Anew McMaster's company. For three summers, Pinter toured Ireland as an actor. At 21, he had already played Iago to McMaster's Othello. Pinter's instincts probably alerted him to the fact that as an actor he was aggressive, perhaps ultimately lacking the vital vulnerability of a great performer.
His little known debut play The Door was staged in 1957, the year after he had married actress Vivien Merchant. The Birthday Party, now a modern classic, which has become more widely known as his first work - and is certainly his first major work - opened in 1958 to hostile reviews.
Other works in a busy career encompassing screenplay writing and directing followed, including The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1965), Old Times (1971), No Man's Land (1975), Betrayal (1978), Moonlight (1993) and Ashes to Ashes (1996). Cryptic violence, family hatreds, obsession, mental disturbance and erotic fantasy are among his themes.
