The drop-curtain resembles a granite slab on which the genius’s name has been carved for all time. The festival of Pinter at the Harold Pinter Theatre feels like the inauguration of a godhead. And it’s not easy to separate the work from the reverence that surrounds it. Pinter One consists of sketches and playlets written in the period after 1980 when the author abandoned his anarchic underclass comedies and set about analysing power and its abuses. But his originality deserted him and he began to write like a student troll with a sadistic streak.
In Press Conference a newly appointed minister discusses murdering dissidents’ children by snapping their necks. In Precisely, two boozy establishment figures chat about bumping off 20 million citizens. The New World Order consists of a naked prisoner being mocked by a pair of nattily dressed bullies. Quite a charmless overture. Mountain Language is a famous short play inspired by Saddam Hussein’s treatment of the Kurds.
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