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The City and Landscapes Beyond Harold Pinter's Rooms by Dilek Inan A thesis submittedin partial fulfilment of the requirementsfor the degreeof Doctor of Philosophyin English and ComparativeLiterary Studies University of Warwick, Departmentof English and ComparativeLiterary Studies August 2000 Table of Contents Acknowledgements Summary Introduction: 'The King of Infinite Space' I Chapter One: Theory & City v Country 15 Theatrical Space:Mimetic and Diegetic Spaces 15 7he Production of Space:Lefebvre 21 TBE CITY 23 a- FIdneurlPasser-by:Baudelaire-Benjamin 26 b- Investigator: Engels 28 c- SpectatorNisitor: Rimbaud 29 TIHE COUNTRY 31 a-A Theatre of Retreat 32 b- Political Anti-pastoral 35 Landscape 37 Silence 45 In the Maze of London: Dis/location in Old Times 54 Chapter Two: 'London: The Enormous Cavern' 74 . No Mans Land. No Woman's Land 74 Living in the City: Betrayal and the Realistic/Cinematic Presentation of Theatrical Space 92 The Newcomer in the City: Family Voices 103 Losing 'the Knowledge': A Cruise about Victoria Station 112 Finding One's Self in A KindqfAlaska 117 Chapter Three: Films 127 Reunion 130 Comfort of Strangers:Death in Venice 139 Pinter in Prague: The Trial 152 Chapter Four: 'Other Places': Political No-Man's-Land 162 The Development of Pinter's Political Activism 163 The Politics and Drama 170 The Receptionof Pinter's Political Persona 178 Precisely: Reality Behind Rhetoric 180 New World Order 187 Onefor the Road. Total Institution as Theatrical Space 189 Political Self-reflexivity 195 Mountain Language: Colonising the Country through the Capital's Language 199 Party Time 212 Chapter Five: From Room to Tomb: Moonlight 221 Moonlight: An Echo or a New Light? 239 Ashesto Ashes: 'A world without a winner' 244 Conclusion 265 Bibliography 269 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor, Tony Howard, who patiently supported and helped me all through the years of hard work; my sponsoring body, Balikesir University, has who offered me support financially; and especiallymy family - Ahmet and Berk - to whom I dedicatethis work. Summary I'm convinced that what happens in my plays could happen anywhere, at any time, in any place, although the eventsmay seemunfamiliar at first glance. (Pinter). Pinter's dramas have been labelled as 'absurd', 'mysterious', 'enigmatic', 'taciturn'. There has been a constanttendency to reducethe idea of the 'Pinteresque'to language when Pinter is preoccupied with the tensions between reality and the world of the imagination. He has, actually and accurately,used theatre as a 'critical act' to denote the abstractedrealities, and he has applied his languageto embodyhis world-view - his concernsin the contemporarycapitalist world. Pinter hasjourneyed from the room to the outside world, from the private to the public social space,and has identified an inescapablesense of pessimismand alienation, and investigated an alam-dngworld of atrocities. There are cities and landscapesbeyond Pinter's rooms, cities peopled by wandering, displaced figures surveying the self- estrangedcity that is modem consciousness,and landscapeswhere his people retreat into the private realmsof memory and fantasy. This thesis explores the virtual geographies beyond Pinter's rooms through the vocabularyof somemodernist theoreticians and social scientists,as there are significant parallels between their analytical observationsand the poetic perceptionsof Pinter, a practisingartist, and the phantomimages of his characters. Pinter's plays and film adaptationstend to portray the city as a colonial present,and the country as a mythological past. The 1970s' plays portray a community of isolation, urban decay, dispossessionand suffering, through the figure of the 'fldneur' - his characters' subjective experiences,memories and fantasiesin the metropolis. In these memory plays, men and women have different mental landscapesand desires.To some extent the city is both a male-constructedworld and an image of the twentieth century; in both sensesit is anti-humanand in decline. In his 1980smature plays, Pinter's lyrical interiors and serenelandscapes are colonised by the metropolis. Here Pinter investigatesa universally oppressivespace filled with misery and social dislocation. The city destroyshumanity in a decayingmodem world. These plays identify the global city as the locus of existential alienation and as the centre of political power and oppression-a world of brute masculinepower. The last two plays,in this study explore other wastelandsof humanisolation and suffering,and criticise the British suspicionof the 'intelligentsia.Using scenesthat are ingrained in the contemporaryaudience's physical memory, Pinter makes the distinctionbetween being an activeparticipant and being a witness,a 'spectator'in this alarmingworld. And thus, he criticisesthe tradition of mockeryof the artistic andthe intellectuallycurious in Britain, and urges a need for a 'politically curious', a tpoliticallyquestioning' theatre-going society. INTRODUCTION: 'A KING OF INFINITE SPACE" Pinter has been a theatrical institution for almost half a century, a conscientious objector in public and a political activist since the 1980s. He has explored different genres including prose and poetry, plays for stage, radio and screen. His crossover from one medium to another (his deliberate decision to write for more than one medium) has given him the opportunity to reach a potential mass audience.He has shocked, bewildered, disappointed, and astonishedaudiences and critics, alike.' He swiftly becameaccepted as Britain's premier dramatist. 1Harold Pinter, The Queen ofAll Fairies, ThePinter Archive, Loan no. 110,Box no. 60. Miis is an 8 pageautobiographical prose piece, written in 1949). 2 During the fifty yearsof Pinter's careeras a dramatistlie hascommitted himself to different styles. His work hasbeen classified as 'realist', 'surrealist','absurdist', 'lyrical', and 'political'. He hasbeen comparedwith Ibsen, Chekhov,Strindbcrg, Pirandello, and Beckett.For half a century,numerous bookshave been written that attemptto deal with Pinter's work. He has beenhighly praisedby one group of critics, and fiercely denouncedby another.Some critics have used scicntific/theoretical formulaeto tracethe diversityand developmentin Pinter's artistic creation;others have approached his texts moremoderately without using any critical theories.Martin Esslin, Ruby Cohn,Bernard F. Dukore, StevenH. Gale, Katherine Burkman, Francis Gillen, Arnold P. Hinclicliffe, John,Lahr, CharlesMarowitz, John RussellTaylor, Irving Wardle, Michael Billington, Lois G. Gordon,Mel Gussow,Marc Silverstein,and D. Keith Peacockarc only someof the manycritics who havewritten substantiallyon Pinter. In 1961,Esslin classifiedPinter amongthe English dramatistsof the absurd (TheTheatre of theAbsurd, 1961); whereas,in the sameyear, Pinter famously said, 'What goeson in my plays is realistic,but what I'm doing is not realism'. Gale observeda solid developmentand gradualchange in the themeof menace(Butter's Going Up, 1977);Walter Kerr approachedPinter as an existentialdramatist (Harold Pinter, 1967); William Baker and StephenTabachnick explored conflicts, such as masculinevs. feminine, and put great emphasison Pinter's Jcwishness(Harold Pinter, 1973); Austin Quigley restrictedhimself to a close examinationof Pinter's language,and surveyedthe causesand consequencesof the impassein Pinter criticism (ThePinter Problem,1975); Guido Almansi and Simon Hendersonfollowed deconstructionisttheory (Harold Pinter, 1983); Gabbardmade a rigorousFreudian reading of Pinter'sdramas (The Dream Structure ofPinter's Plays, 1976);Lois Gordondetected role-playing and sexfrom a Freudianviewpoint (Stratagems to Uncover Nakedness,1968); Katherine H. Burkman analysedPinter's plays through myth and ritual (The Dramatic World of Harold Pinter, 1971);Elizabeth Sakcllaridou analysed Pinter's femaleportraits usingpsychoanalysis, sociology and feminism, illustratively rather than theoretically(Pinter's Female Portraits, 1988).However, only someof the morerecent works placesufficient emphasis on Pinter's political development:Marc Silverstein'sHarold Pinter and the Languageof Cultural Power(1993); D. Keith Peacock'sHarold Pinter and the New British Theatre (1997); Michael Billington's biographyThe Life and Work of Harold Pinter (1996); Mel Gussow'sConversations with Pinter (1994);Katherine Burkman and Kundert Gibbs'scollection of essaysin Pinter at Sixty (1993);and morerecently, Vera Gottlieband Colin Chambers'svaluable survey of contemporaryBritish theatreat the beginningof a new century,Theatre in a Cool Climate(1999), which startswith their interview with Pinter. Pinter's use of language,time, and memory;the relationshipsbetween his male and female characters;his personaland artistic evolutionfrom privacyto politics - haveall beennoted by critics. There is one more striking development,however, which, though touchedupon in critical studies,has never been analysed systematically. This concernsPinter's treatment of 'space'. 2 3 For Pinter 'writing is discovery and journey" a journey that