Pinter and twentieth-century drama

Harold Pinter'sOld Timesand the play of indistinction

“…Earlier scholarship has tended to stress the interpretation of Old Times as a 'memory contest' (Kreps, 1979, 54). This contest for 'superior knowledge' (Billington, 2009, 367), primarily with the characters Anna and Deeley 'competing to re‐create the past' (Quigley, 1987, 17), has been described as an ongoing 'language struggle' (Knowles, 1995, 130) for the 'ultimate possession' of Kate (Billington, 2009, 367). Accordingly, 'memory is a weapon' (Dukore, 1988, 93), and recollections of the past are consequently 'tools for gaining advantage' (Batty, 2005, 52).…”

“…Indeed, '[m]emories arouse rivalry and battles for domination through participation in a past or through one’s ability to persuade another to accept an interpretation of it' (Dukore, 1988, 93). Another interpretive strategy has been that of stressing the 'fallibility of memory' (Knowles, 1995, 130) and how the past cannot 'be a verifiable record of the past' since '[t]he past is presented as possessing fluid, amorphous qualities that ultimately belie any attempt to construct present certainty from them' (Batty, 2005, 52, 53).…”

“…Peter Hall’s 1962 double bill of Pinter’s The Collection and Strindberg’s Playing with Fire , or Michael Billington’s 1997 pairing of Pinter’s The Lover and Strindberg’s The Stranger . See Knowles (2001), who notes the legacy of Strindberg on Pinter’s dialogue and structures of silences. See also Ghasemi and Tavassoli (2011), which studies the theme of entrapment in relationships 'originating from different forms of pathological communication' (p. 69).…”