Production history
Landscape was written for the stage, but the official theatre censor, the Lord Chamberlain, refused it a licence unless Pinter removed its strong language. [5] The official report read: "The nearer to Beckett, the more portentous Pinter gets. This is a long one-act play without any plot or development ... a lot of useless information about the treatment of beer ... And of course, there have to be the ornamental indecencies." [1] Pinter declined to change his text. The play was first presented as a radio broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 25 April 1968, with Peggy Ashcroft as Beth and Eric Porter as Duff. [6] Theatre censorship in Britain was abolished that same year and Landscape was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London on 2 July 1969 with Ashcroft as Beth and David Waller as Duff, directed by Peter Hall. [6] A film was made of the Peter Hall production with Ashcroft and Waller; it is currently available on DVD from Films Media Group of Princeton, New Jersey.
The play was produced at the Royal National Theatre in November 1994 with Penelope Wilton as Beth and Ian Holm as Duff, directed by the author. [7] This production was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1995. [8]
The National Theatre revived the play in 2008 with Clare Higgins and Simon Russell Beale. [9] A third radio version was broadcast by the BBC in May 2008 with Wilton again as Beth and the author playing Duff. [10]
The theatre of the absurd is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of theatre the plays represent. The plays focus largely on ideas of existentialism and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of the plays is typically a round shape, with the finishing point the same as the starting point. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion—silence.
Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.
Sir Michael John Gambon was an Irish-English actor. Gambon started his acting career with Laurence Olivier as one of the original members of the Royal National Theatre. Over his six-decade-long career, he received three Olivier Awards and four BAFTA TV Awards. In 1998, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama.
The Dumb Waiter is a one-act play by Harold Pinter written in 1957.
Krapp's Last Tape is a 1958 one-act play, in English, by Samuel Beckett. With a cast of one man, it was written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue". It was inspired by Beckett's experience of listening to Magee reading extracts from Molloy and From an Abandoned Work on the BBC Third Programme in December 1957.
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
The Birthday Party (1957) is the first full-length play by Harold Pinter, first published in London by Encore Publishing in 1959. It is one of his best-known and most frequently performed plays.
Betrayal is a play written by Harold Pinter in 1978. Critically regarded as one of the English playwright's major dramatic works, it features his characteristically economical dialogue, characters' hidden emotions and veiled motivations, and their self-absorbed competitive one-upmanship, face-saving, dishonesty, and (self-)deceptions.
Mixed Doubles: An Entertainment on Marriage is a programme consisting of a series of eight short plays or revue sketches, each with two characters, composed by various English playwrights. It was first performed on 6 February 1969 in the Hampstead Theatre Club with the title, We Who Are About To.... The programme was then presented as Mixed Doubles: An Entertainment on Marriage at the Comedy Theatre, London, on 9 April 1969.
Family Voices is a radio play by Harold Pinter written in 1980 and first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 22 January 1981.
Patrick George Magee was an Irish actor. He was noted for his collaborations with playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, sometimes called "Beckett's favourite actor," as well as creating the role of the Marquis de Sade in the original stage and screen productions of Marat/Sade.
The Caretaker is a drama in three acts by Harold Pinter. Although it was the sixth of his major works for stage and television, this psychological study of the confluence of power, allegiance, innocence, and corruption among two brothers and a tramp, became Pinter's first significant commercial success. It premiered at the Arts Theatre Club in London's West End on 27 April 1960 and transferred to the Duchess Theatre the following month, where it ran for 444 performances before departing London for Broadway. In 1963, a film version of the play based on Pinter's unpublished screenplay was directed by Clive Donner. The movie starred Alan Bates as Mick and Donald Pleasence as Davies in their original stage roles, while Robert Shaw replaced Peter Woodthorpe as Aston. First published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960, The Caretaker remains one of Pinter's most celebrated and oft-performed plays.
Norman Frederick Simpson was an English playwright closely associated with the Theatre of the Absurd. To his friends he was known as Wally Simpson, in comic reference to the abdication crisis of 1936.
Night is a dramatic sketch by the English playwright Harold Pinter, presented as one of eight short dramatic works about marriage in the program Mixed Doubles: An Entertainment on Marriage at the Comedy Theatre, London, on 9 April 1969; directed by Alexander Doré, this production included Nigel Stock as the Man and Pinter's first wife, Vivien Merchant, as the Woman (54). It replaced another sketch performed previously in the program We Who Are About To... at the Hampstead Theatre Club on 6 February 1969; each of the original eight sketches about marriage also featured two characters.
Krapp, ou, La dernière bande is a chamber opera in one act by Marcel Mihalovici with a libretto by Samuel Beckett. The libretto is based on Beckett's 1958 play Krapp's Last Tape, and large portions of the play's script were lifted for use in the libretto. Like the play, the opera is a monologue with the only character being that of Krapp. The opera was commissioned jointly by the Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française and the Bielefeld Opera, Germany. From the very beginning the opera's libretto has existed in three different languages: English, French and German. It premiered using the French-language version on RTF radio on 15 May 1961 and had its stage debut in Paris on 3 July 1961 at the Théâtre des Nations. The original stage production was performed by visiting artists from the Städtische Bühnen, notably American baritone William Dooley singing the title role. The work was next performed at the Städtische Bühnen in February 1962 with Dooley singing the role in German.
Bibliography for Harold Pinter is a list of selected published primary works, productions, secondary sources, and other resources related to English playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008), the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, who was also a screenwriter, actor, director, poet, author, and political activist. It lists works by and works about him, and it serves as the Bibliography for the main article on Harold Pinter and for several articles relating to him and his works.
Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work identifies distinctive aspects of the works of the British playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008) and gives an indication of their influence on Anglo-American culture.
The Basement is a television play by Harold Pinter. It was written first as a screenplay for a film, then revised for television and broadcast on 20 February 1967.
Donald McWhinnie was a British BBC executive and later a radio, television, and stage director.
