Page 318 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

British Drama

Notes the 1949 novel by Elizabeth Bowen; The Comfort of Strangers (1990), from the novel by Ian McEwan,
directed by Paul Schrader; and The Trial (1993), from the novel by Franz Kafka, directed by David
Jones.
His commissioned screenplays of others’ works for the films The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), The Remains
of the Day (1990), and Lolita (1997), remain unpublished and in the case of the latter two films,
uncredited, though several scenes from or aspects of his scripts were used in these finished films.
His screenplays The Proust Screenplay (1972), Victory (1982), and The Dreaming Child (1997) and his
unpublished screenplay The Tragedy of King Lear (2000) have not been filmed. A section of Pinter’s
Proust Screenplay was, however, released as the 1984 film Swann in Love, directed by Volker
Schlöndorff, and it was also adapted by Michael Bakewell as a two-hour radio drama broadcast on
BBC Radio 3 in 1995, before Pinter and director Di Trevis collaborated to adapt it for the 2000 National
Theatre production.

Pinter’s last filmed screenplay was an adaptation of the 1970 Tony Award-winning
play Sleuth, by Anthony Shaffer, which was commissioned by Jude Law, one of
the film’s producers. It is the basis for the 2007 film Sleuth, directed by Kenneth
Branagh.
Pinter’s screenplays for The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Betrayal were nominated for Academy
Awards in 1981 and 1983, respectively.

Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Questions:
1. Which of the following play earned Harold Pinter Tony Award for Best Play?
(a) The Homecoming (b) The Birthday Party
(c) The Hothouse (d) Betrayal.
2. Which of the following plays was not written by Harold Pinter?
(a) No Man’s Land (b) Roots
(c) Family Voices (d) Party Time.
Fill in the blanks:
3. Harold Pinter was suffering with ...... cancer.
4. Working as both a screenwriter and as a playwright, Pinter composed a script called ...... for
a trilogy of films to be contributed by Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Pinter.
State whether the following statements are true or false:
5. In the early 1980s after his marriage to Antonia Fraser and the death of Vivien Merchant,
Pinter’s plays become overtly political, serving as critiques of oppression, torture, and other
abuses of human rights.
6. Pinter composed 27 screenplays and film scripts for cinema and television, many of which
could not be filmed.

27.2 The Birthday Party—Introduction to the Text

Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party was the playwright’s first commercially-produced, full-length
play. He began writing the work after acting in a theatrical tour, during which, in Eastbourne,
England, he had lived in filthy insane digs. There he became acquainted with a great bulging scrag

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