Building sight
Playwrights should look closely at how Harold Pinter builds dramatic structure. It’s the foundation stone for any well-made play.
I went to a fascinating exhibition the other day. The occasion was a private party to celebrate the British Library’s acquisition of the Harold Pinter archive. I’d recommend anyone interested in theatre to visit the Library’s Sir John Ritblat Gallery. In a room containing everything from a manuscript of Beowulf to Beatles memorabilia you find a section devoted to Pinter – letters, photos, sound recordings, even a first draft of The Homecoming. But, as I talked to a clutch of Pinter directors, including Michael Attenborough, David Farr, Ian Rickson and Patrick Marber, I was struck by Harold’s astonishing durability.
Something rare has happened to Pinter which I don’t think we have fully grasped: he has become a classic in his own lifetime. Most writers are subject to the swings and roundabouts of fashion and fall into neglect in their later years only to be rediscovered after their death, as happened to Rattigan and Osborne. But Pinter, now in his 78th year, is enjoying a golden period. This year alone sees revivals of The Birthday Party at the Lyric Hammersmith, A Slight Ache at the National with Simon Russell Beale and Clare Higgins, No Man’s Land with Michael Gambon and David Bradley and The Lover/The Collection in the West End. Pinter, I’d argue, has been accepted as a modern master to be mentioned in the same breath as Beckett, Ibsen and Chekhov.
I may be accused of partiality: after all, I wrote Pinter’s biography. But a recent Guardian feature, in which critics recalled how they’d been attacked by artists, reminded me that my relationship with Pinter wasn’t always as mellow as it is now. Back in the late 1960s, Pinter and Robert Shaw used me as a convenient punchbag with which to pummel critics in a volatile TV discussion. And, after Betrayal had won a Best Play award from the Society of West End Theatres, Pinter in his acceptance speech announced: “I am the most surprised person in this room apart from … Michael Billington”. I can assure you, since I hadn’t initially liked the play, it was a pause fraught with menace.
All that is history. What strikes me now is Pinter’s capacity for survival, both as a man and an artist. There may be a lesson here for younger dramatists. If Pinter has overcome a series of life-threatening illnesses, it is partly because of his early physical fitness and his iron will. And, if he has lived to see his work constantly revived, it is because of his command not just of language but of dramatic structure. I stress this last because I see a lot of new plays that show a flair for inventive dialogue but too little awareness of the nuts-and-bolts that hold a play together.
Pinter’s mastery of structure came home to me recently when I did a workshop with theatre students from York University. We worked on three Pinter pieces: the early revue-sketch Last to Go, in which a newspaper-seller and a barman swap banalities to conceal their fear of loneliness; the Lenny-Ruth encounter in The Homecoming, in which a glass of water becomes the focus for an emotional trial of strength; and a scene from One For The Road, where a female victim confronts her torturer. What we discovered was that her silent defiance and unwavering gaze contain their own secret power. All this may be obvious to any professional director: that each scene, like the whole play, is based on a beautifully articulated rhythm. As a critic, it was valuable to learn these things by practical experience. It also reinforced my long-held belief that it is nonsense to talk disparagingly of the “well-made” play. All good plays have a natural sense of organic growth. If Pinter is permanently revived, it is because he realised from the start that drama, like life itself, is best when based on a sound structure.
