Pinter Wins The Nobel Prize

I don't know a lot of Pinter, and whenever I have to sit in an audience and watch Pinter,

I don't know what to think.



I have seen a lot of Pinter with a lot of pregnant pauses,



but I don't think Pinter requires a lot of pregnant pauses.

You see less of it now that Mamet based a career basically by being Pinter on speed.



But Pinter does require some pauses. And some of those pauses need to be


Pregnant.


The best Pinter I've seen is the Pinter I've done myself.

I played Goldberg in The Birthday Party in a commercial production in Tribeca.


Directed lots of scenes from Old Times.

I don't say its the best Pinter because I'm the best theatre artist, although I was a damned great Goldberg, and I will never be better at anything, even if I win an Oscar someday.

However, most of the people who came to see me do The Birthday Party thought that the play was incomprehensible. I'm not surprised.

The thing is that when you have a chance to say the lines,

or to marinate in the relationships

you


understand


how hard it is


as a human being


to connect with


another human being


and


to get





words


out of your mouth


and get them right.


And you can know that intellectually. And you can watch actors do Pinter and you can get it viscerally.

But if you're not an actor, and you can get someone to sit in a chair with you, and read some Pinter back and forth, as adults, you'll get a little taste of that.

And you'll learn something that I'm not sure can be learned any other way.

Which is why the best Pinter I've seen.


Is the Pinter I've done myself.