Harold Pinter Plays 2: The Caretaker; Night School; The Dwarfs; The Collection; The Lover

Complete Works #2

by Harold Pinter

The second volume of Harold Pinter's collected work includes The Caretaker.





The Caretaker


It was with this play that Harold Pinter had his first major success. The obsessive caretaker, Davies, is a classic comic creation, and his uneasy relationship with the enigmatic Aston and Mick a landmark in twentieth-century drama.





'The play remains a masterpiece.' Daily Telegraph





The Collection


This one-act play for television explores the sexual manoeuvres between two couples in the clothing trade.





'Taps the adrenal flow of contemporary guilt and anxiety.' Time





The Lover


Richard and Sarah conduct themselves with apparent respectability in the mornings, whilst living out a sequence of erotic rituals in the afternoons.





'Beautifully written... the sexiest play I remember seeing on the television.' Sunday Times





The volume also includes Night School and The Dwarfs, plus five revue sketches written during the same period.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, British Literature, Literature, 20th Century

260 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 21, 2013

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three cheers for Grove Press btw, and all they great books they published over the years. For the most part I enjoyed this collection, although some of the pieces are clearly better than others. Pinter has a dry, clipped style that manages to be both emotionally direct and conceptually vague. A subtle sense of menace is often in the air as unacknowledged struggles for dominance are engaged in. Much of the conversation is superficially ordinary, but a slightly surreal disquiet is always lurking nearby. Pinter's work has a coldly passionate feel all its own.

The major piece here is the full-length play "The Caretaker." It concerns an old man named Davies (or possibly Jenkins), an irritating chap, constantly complaining and unable to get along well with anyone, full of racism and opinions. A quiet young man named Aston has befriended him and invited him into his dishevelled home. The older man is in need of work and a roof over his head. Aston's tough brother Mick shows up, and after giving Davies a hard time, offers him a job as a caretaker of a house. Aston, a dreamy fellow, turns out to have troubles of his own. Pinter does a fine job of making us feel the loneliness of these misfits in their attempts to reach out to one another. However, things do not end up going well - the point seems to be that people can dig their own graves by failing to recognize good things that come up and self-righteously refusing to examine or change themselves.

"Night School" is a surprise - a light, breezy, mainstream comedy about mixed up identities that was written for television. In it, a young man comes home from prison, to his spinster aunts' house, to find his bedroom rented out to a young woman. There are also two plays here that are dark, moody dramas about marriage and infidelity. In "The Lover", the most experimental piece in this collection, a husband and wife discuss their infidelities and some confusion results. In "The Collection", two couples (one of them gay, although this is not explicit) confront the issue of infidelity. A strange young man shows up and, oozing sarcastic hostility, confronts them with a story about a sexual encounter. A "Rashomon"-like situation develops in which each character's version of the truth is colored by his/her stake in the situation. Undercurrents of hostility criss-cross beneath a veneer of civilized respectability, and it becomes unclear whether we are in the realm of actuality or fantasy.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume has my favorite Pinter play, five star rated, The Caretaker. Pinter was a master at outlining the structures in social interactions and relationships and The Caretaker diagrams the changing balance of power between three men in their attempts to dominate each other. I especially liked Pinter's handling of long speeches in the play and Ashton's soliloquy is brilliant. The rest of the plays are not as memorable, though The Lovers and Night School have moments.

[Aude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harold Pinter is an absurdist playwright. His plays are very good and keep the reader guessing the entire time. The dialogue is very open but ends with a pow. Again, good for people who like the abstract.

[Jim Marrone · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection showed that Pinter's works are better suited for stage than for reading - and I guess that makes a good theater piece, but it makes for difficult reading. There is so much subtext in his repetition, and so many pauses and choppy sentences; its hard to appreciate the real meaning behind the words, not to mention the characters and their relationships, without seeing it acted out in person. (Also, the humor likely comes through much better when acted.) So, this was somewhat tedious reading, hence three stars or even two and a half for the first few plays in the collection. The upside is that as a collection it does provide insight into Pinter's development. You can clearly see the absurdist side of his early work, moving into more realistic works (the back cover says as much but it is true).

I especially liked the revue sketches because they are like little windows into Pinter's process, like artists' sketches that inform the larger masterpieces. You can see Pinter experimenting with character, dialogue, humor, and finding the simultaneous meaning and ridiculousness that inhabit small scenes from daily life.

[Emily Wolfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Caretaker - 3.5 stars
The Dwarfs - 3 stars
The Collection - 4 stars
The Lover - 4.5 stars
Night School - 3 stars

along with a few revue sketches—not really notable imo besides Last to Go which is amazing

Lots of layers to Pinter that it’s hard to get on a first reading. I’m sure I would be able to get more out of these if I saw them performed (the reason the ratings for Lover and The Collection are higher is definitely because I was able to see them live so these are prejudiced lol.)

[Stark]

I am such a dunce about theater. I wish it had been more of a part of my life. It has something that cinema doesn’t: that moment when you notice you have been holding your breath. I think this can only come from being physically present with actors. I only got to experience this a couple times in the theater, but many times while directing.

[Cate · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t normally review things I don’t like, but I hope to be a voice of solidarity for anyone else who hates Pinter.

[Issie]

nur the caretaker

[alex caban-echevarria]

read: the caretaker 🛌 watched: the caretaker (1963)

[Mar Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harold Pinter is a genius. I cannot describe how immersed I get when I read his plays. I never thought I would enjoy reading plays but this has definitely proved me wrong. Although I didn't love all the plays (I did like them all, but there were some less successful ones in my eyes), my standout for this anthology was The Caretaker.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

برخی از نمایش نامه های این مجموعه که به دوران سوم و انتهایی نویسندگی پینتر مربوط است، به فارسی ترجمه نشده، یا من ندیده ام. اما بیشتر آثار او که به مکتب "تیاتر بیهودگی" منتسب است، مانند اتاق، جشن تولد، سرایدار و غیره، به فارسی ترجمه شده و اگرچه برخی از آنها بصورت کتاب منتشر نشده اند، اما همگی روی صحنه یا در تله ویزیون ملی ایران، اجرا شده اند.

هارولد پینتر با اولین نمایش نامه اش "اتاق" به مکتب "تیاتر بیهودگی" پیوست، و به سرعت کنار نام آوران این نوع تیاتر قرار گرفت. از "ناکجا آباد" (1974) به بعد، "یکی برای جاده"(1984)، "کوه زبان" (1988)، "نظم نوین جهانی"(1991) و ... خمیرمایه ی سیاسی آثارش جلوه ی بیشتری یافت، و مواضعش در مورد قشار جهان آزاد بر کوبا و نیکاراگوا، و بالاخره علیه آمریکا و انگلیس و جنگ عراق، خشمگینانه تر و تهاجمی تر شد. پینتر با اقتباس برخی نوشته هایش، تعدادی فیلم نامه هم نوشته که مشهورترین آنها "مستخدم" 1963 و "تصادف" اند که هر دو توسط "جوزف لوزی" ساخته شد، "بازگشت به خانه" 1964، "واسطه" 1970، خیانت 1978، "زن گروهبان فرانسوی" 1981 و...

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[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel that THE CARETAKER is Pinter's finest voice. It has been wonderful to have seen Pinter's works performed recently but haveing also seen some of Miller's work as well can nearly overshadow some of Pinter's more popular plays. While he is an entirley seminal artist I would say look into The Caretaker for extraordinary beauty and strong heartfelt movement.

[Shahryar Shalchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

T.S.Elliot says:I measure out my life with coffe spones and in Pinter's "The lover" a modern-time story is presented.A boring life that all of us are engaged.

[Sam Ruddick · Rating 5 out of 5]

the caretaker and the lover are outstanding in every way. dark and very funny.

[Albie]

Complete Works : Two : The Caretaker, the Dwarfs, the Collection, the Lover, Night School, Revue Sketches by Harold Pinter (1990)

[Nosa Normanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love his work. it's twisted. The caretaker and the lover are two of my favorites in this compilation. Hoping i can put them on stage someday.

[Jobie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite set of plays by him.

[Moßtafa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lover & Night School best ones.