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The plays of the late Nobel laureate Harold Pinter have formed part of the canon of world theatre since the 1960s. Frequently revived on the professional stage, and studied on almost every Theatre Studies course, his importance and influence is hard to overestimate. This Critical Companion offers an assessment of Pinter''s entire body of work for the stage, appraising his skill as a dramatist and considering his impact and legacy. Through a clear focus on issues of theatricality and the effect of the plays in performance considers Pinter''s chief narrative concerns and offers a unifying theme through which over four decades of work may be understood. Plays are considered in themed chapters that follow the chronological sequence of work, illuminating the development of his aesthetic and concerns. The volume features too a series of essays from other leading scholars presenting different critical perspectives on the work, including Harry Burton on Pinter''s early drama; Ann Hall on Revisiting Pinter''s Women; Chris Megson on Pinter''s Memory Plays of the 1970s, and Basil Chiasson on Neoliberalism and Democracy.>
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Invasion and Oppression
2. The Company of Men and the Place of Women
3. Present Continuous, Past Perfect
4. The Impossible Family
5. Politics and the Artist as Citizen
6. Critical Perspectives:
The Curse of Pinter, by Harry Burton
Revisting Pinter's Women, by Ann Hall
Pinter's Memory Plays of the 1970s, by Chris Megson
Pinter's Political Dramas: Staging Neoliberal Discourse and Authoritarianism, by Basil Chiasson
Notes
Index
Notes on Contributors
About the author
Mark Taylor-Batty is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and Deputy Head of School in the School of English at the University of Leeds, UK. His previous publications include The Theatre of Harold Pinter (Bloomsbury, 2014), About Pinter: The Playwright and the Work (Faber and Faber, 2005), Roger Blin: Collaborations and Methodologies (Peter Lang, 2007) and, he co-authored with his wife, Juliette Taylor-Batty, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (Continuum, 2009).
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[The Theatre of Harold Pinter] offers some valuable original insights and its close analysis of the development of Pinter's dramatic themes and aesthetics will be informative to students and general readers alike. D. Keith Peacock Studies in Theatre and Performance
