Melissa Yeh

Playwright Harold Pinter’s 20^th-century works still hold an important influence on modern pieces today.  Through his life, he developed his passion for literature and a unique style in his plays.  His use of pauses coined the terms Pinteresque and Pinter Pause, which communicate tension and oftentimes a menacing play behind the awkward silence.  The Dumb Waiter indicates the classic traits Pinter paints in each of his works and achieves a blend of comedy and seriousness in an absurd situation.

Through his talent in the various areas of poetry, acting, and directing, Harold Pinter best expressed himself through his plays.  He gained recognition for the style of dramas in the postwar revival of British theatre.  Born on October 10, 1930, Pinter experienced the affected society by war, while also developing his creativity.  In his biography published in the 1960s, the dramatist reveals the hundreds of poems and short prose pieces, written in monologue or dialogue form, and all composed before the age of twenty.  This led to his involvement in theater, establishing his passion as a playwright and eventually, as a director.  After, Pinter dedicated time and career to acting, focusing on roles in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice, and then on to many other roles across a range of different genres.  Through this, he met Vivien Merchant, an actress at the time, and married her in 1956.  In the same year, Pinter wrote his first play, The Room, the first of his style he introduced to the world of theater.  He went on to write more, including The Birthday Party and The Caretaker.

Reaching the 1970s, Pinter moved on to experiment with screenplays and refine his own work in plays.  The height of his fame peaked in 1975, which also gave him attention, more likely unwanted, concerning an affair.  Lady Antonia Fraser was the subject of his drama, to which Pinter chose to be with while still married to Vivien Merchant.  He left his wife in 1978, leaving a bitter break and ending in Merchant’s death in 1980.  Merchant and Pinter’s son was also affected and estranged himself from Pinter.  Entering the 1980s, Harold Pinter then became more vocal in his political beliefs.  He joined groups and associated himself to a cause that advocated for the rejection and opposition of war.  While his earlier plays had underlying and subtle references to oppression and other issues, they were not the direct theme in the play.  Those written in the 1980s were political by obvious nature.  However, these plays were not quite well received but also not an extreme matter of negative review.  They simply lacked the praise and interest attained before in past works.

In the meantime, Pinter’s relationship with Lady Antonia Fraser grew in strength and how well they fit each other.  They completed each other in thought and speech; for example, during one dinner party, Harold was seen to be protesting and ranting, his wife regarded his ideas with a Chinese proverb, “If you sit by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies come floating by,” to which Pinter responded, “Not good enough, I want to be the one who pushed them in.”  Pinter’s character was always reflected in his plays, and his thoughts are still seen in glimpses through his distinct tone as a playwright.  Through time, his audience began to identify the shape his pieces took.  Harold Pinter went on to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005; he passed away in 2008 and was remembered through the theater named after him in 2011: The Harold Pinter Theater.

During his career as a playwright, Harold Pinter achieved his technique and brand throughout the years.  From his style, the terms “Pinteresque” and “Pinter Pause” originate to describe elements within plays today.  The two are closely related in its reference to Pinter’s key use of silence; Pinteresque refers to the awkward silence pointing to a hidden menace lurking behind, while a Pinter Pause, which referred to a stop in the dialogue, creating tension and confusion.  The use of silence was a trademark element for Pinter, as it served to withhold motives and information.  This unspoken dialogue had an ominous feel and threat from one character to another or to both characters altogether.

Another notable feature of Pinter’s plays was the ending and meaning often left for interpretation to the audience.  Pinter gained recognition for the unknown allegorical or symbolic revelations, initially receiving negative critique.  In one interview, he states, “A character on stage who can present no convincing argument or information as to his past experience, his present behavior or his aspirations, nor give a comprehensive analysis of his motives, is as legitimate and as worthy of attention as one who, alarmingly, can do all these things.”  The constant uncertainty present in his plays took time for playgoers to understand and appreciate, something that came along much later into his career.  A factor evident in many of his pieces, Pinter would use betrayal as a frequent theme within his plots.  Many speculated it related to his affair with Lady Antonia Fraser and betrayal of his wife, Vivien Merchant; however, the emotion of regret behind it was always a mystery, as his plays did not expand as much on his personal reflection.  Yet in an interesting turn, Pinter had the ability to employ humor within his works.  The Dumb Waiter was well received for the comical banter while being set within a seemingly grim and serious background.  On the whole, Harold Pinter continued to work on his use of ambiguity behind meaning.  Even his main actors began to develop it in their portrayal of his plays: Ralph Richardson who acted in the play No Man’s Land remarked on the characters and the response of the viewers, saying, “We’re a mystery to ourselves and other people.”  Thus, Pinter was successful in demonstrating his use of silence and obscure meanings.

Published in 1957, The Dumb Waiter is one of Harold Pinter’s earlier plays, about two hit men in a hotel basement waiting for orders on their next task.  Ben sits on the bed reading over a newspaper, while Gus paces around the room.  It is all very minimal, from the amount of characters to the entire set only in one room for the whole time.  The play reflects many of the characteristics his works feature, even being one of the first few plays he had written.  Pinter himself spoke on the influence of Samuel Beckett, another dramatist at the time who had a similar style in his works to Pinter.  The Dumb Waiter especially found parallels to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.  Both authors use the silence within a pause to convey a mysterious atmosphere filled with menace.  The use of pauses is most evident in the conversation between the two hit men; the plot builds to the reveal of Ben raising his gun at Gus in receiving the order to kill him.  In each chain of dialogue, the audience can recognize that Ben sees himself above Gus who constantly questions about the task they will receive and who they will have to kill.  When Ben refuses to answer these questions directly, he turns to throw off the question by redirecting Gus’s attention to another topic.  For instance, the conversation began in a casual manner about the room they waited in, but when Gus even suggested switching the conversation, Ben responded by alluding to a story he was reading in the paper.  This reoccurs the very next page, after their discourse on the article; Gus asks what time their contact, Wilson, will get in touch to which Ben does not even answer at all until Gus has to repeat it again.

The tension continues to grow each time this occurs. As for why these characters respond this way, the two have differing personalities and ideals surrounding their job they must carry out.  Ben not only sees himself as the one in charge but also is very evident and violent about it.  His speech reflects his thrown around anger, even at minor and unimportant matters.  At one point for not being able to light the gas to make tea, Ben explodes at Gus, yelling, “THE KETTLE YOU FOOL,” while putting his hands around his neck at arms length and shaking him back and forth.  On the other hand Gus is consistent in being inquisitive whether it is about the their next job or the reason why they do it.  His character also demonstrates more care for whom they have to kill and whether the person actually deserves to die or not.  Each time, Ben alludes to answering these questions in a condescending reply on something unrelated, mostly being the newspaper.

Yet while Pinter writes with such intimidating characters, he manages to bring comedy into the moments before the two men have to execute their next task.  Throughout the entire play, the banter between the two is as if a dysfunctional married couple was arguing every five minutes about the most mundane problems.  They transition from making the other prepare tea to why the toilet is no longer working.  When they discover messages being sent down from the dumbwaiter, they scramble to send anything back up regardless of the fact they have no idea why or of it would benefit anything concerning their job, much like their conversation being one-sided and almost useless as Ben will eventually betray Gus.  They also find a tube that limits the audience to find out what the authority figure is saying through Ben, who repeats the message to Gus, who repeats the message repeated by Ben.  The conversation often falls into an absurd foolishness to the advantage of comedy Pinter was trying to convey.

The Dumb Waiter is an excellent play as it is also an excellent play on words.  The two hit men, Ben and Gus, wait for their next order and stupidly clamber around with a dumbwaiter in a basement room.  Harold Pinter’s ability to effectively use silence in his plays is seen with Ben’s pause each time Gus asks a question he does not want to answer.  Overall, Pinter’s career in theater accomplished great feats, awarding him the Nobel Prize for literature, and leaving a legacy for future playwrights.

Works Cited

“Drama Analysis: The Dumb Waiter – Ink9GEnglishI.” Ink9English.

“Harold Pinter: the Most Original, Stylish and Enigmatic Writer in Post-War British Theatre.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 25 Dec. 2008.

Kuska, Martina, et al. “By Harold Pinter and by Edward Albee a Soulpepper Theatre (Toronto) Production Study Guide.” THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE ENGLISH THEATRE PROGRAMMES FOR STUDENT AUDIENCES.

Pinter, Harold. The Caretaker and the Dumb Waiter: Two Plays by Harold Pinter. Grove Press, 1960.