Harold Pinter (1930-)
English playwright who achieved international success as one of the most complex post-World War II dramatist. 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. "I don't know how music can influence writing, but it has been very important for me, both jazz and classical music. I feel a sense of music continually in writing, which is different matter from having been influenced by it." (Pinter in Playwrights at Work, ed. by George Plimpton, 2000)
Harold Pinter was born in Hacney, as small, working-class neighborhood near London's East End, as the son of a Jewish tailor. On the outbreak of the World War II he was evacuated out of the city; he returned to London when he was 14. In school Pinter read particularly the works of Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway. He was educated at Hackney Downs Grammar School where he acted in school productions. He accepted a grant to study at the London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. After two unhappy years he left his studies. In 1949 Pinter was fined by magistrates for having as a conscientious objector refused to do his national service. "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." (from Playwrights at Work)
In 1950 Pinter started to publish poems in Poetry (London) under the name Harold Pinta. He worked as a bit-part actor on a BBC Radio program, Focus on Football Pools. He studied for a short time at the Central School of Speech and Drama and toured Ireland from 1951 to 1952. In 1953 he appeared during Donald Wolfit's 1953 season at the King's Theatre in Hammersmith. After four more years in provincial repertory theatre under the pseudonym David Baron, Pinter began to write for the stage. THE ROOM (1957), originally written for Bristol University's drama department, was finished in four days. A SLIGHT ACHE, Pinter's first radio piece, was broadcast on the BBC in 1959. His first full-length play, THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, was produced in 1958 in the West End.