Sam's review
Complete Works : Two : The Caretaker, the Dwarfs, the Collection, the Lover, Night School, Revue Sketches by Harold Pinter
Sam's review
rating:
bookshelves: plays
recommended for: modern theatre fans
status: Read in March, 2002
rating:
bookshelves: plays
recommended for: modern theatre fans
status: Read in March, 2002
While the assorted shorts in this book, most notably "The Lover" are worth your time, the centerpiece of this collection - and the reason I'm giving it such high marks - is "The Caretaker", one of the highlights of modern British playwriting. People usually talk about Pinter as an intensely difficult writer, and so his work, like Samuel Beckett's, hasn't received nearly enough praise for being funny and genuinely creepy. There's really nothing here that wouldn't be acceptable to a general audience in the hands of a talented cast and director. "The Caretaker" contains a lot of wickedly funny dialogue and even some delightful slapstick comedy, as well as one of the greatest dramatic soliloquies of the 20th century. Few playwrights can make issues of identity, property, and mental instability fuse so seamlessly in a single work; this is clearly Pinter at the top of his game.
