Shakespeare's influence and Shakespearean aspects in some of Harold Pinter's plays

Abstract

Theatre-goers are often uncertain how to interpret Harold Pinter's plays. A greater awareness of how Pinter's early experiences as a Shakespearean actor have influenced his playwriting gives us considerable insight into Pinter's playwriting strategies. This thesis integrates four different approaches to examine multifarious Shakespearean resonances in Pinter's plays. Firstly, echoes from Othello and The Merchant of Venice in Betrayal and The Homecoming are explored in order to investigate whether Pinter's portrayal of Iago on stage may have been a contributing influence to some of the language games in Pinter's plays. Metadramatic attributes shared by Shakespeare and his character Iago are extended to Pinter and his character Robert in Betrayal. Secondly, Pinter's portrayal of Horatio and Hamlet may account for resonances from Hamlet in Ashes to Ashes and One for the Road. A Jungian reading of Hamlet is juxtaposed with Pinter's political plays, Ashes to Ashes and One for the Road, to examine how manipulators in these plays attempt to obliterate individual identities and reduce individuals to pawns by foisting national and paternal identities onto characters. Hamlet's and Rebecca's resistance to such threats are examined in terms of their endeavours to unite opposites in their quests for individuation. This study sheds light on the strong antithetical structures and open-endedness in Shakespeare's and Pinter's plays. Thirdly, thematic resonances from Shakespeare's sonnets and Othello in Pinter's Monologue and Betrayal are explored. Similarities in the antithetical structures of Monologue and Sonnet 144 are examined. Fourthly, this study reflects on how the threads of the metadramatic, psychoanalytic, and thematic readings were woven into a double bill production of Monologue and Ashes to Ashes that was staged with Shakespearean echoes. Attention is paid to how, like Shakespeare, Pinter has embedded directorial clues in his texts. Shakespeare and Pinter are first and foremost practical men of the theatre and a better understanding of Pinter's experience as a Shakespearean actor may be helpful to a cast of a Pinter play during rehearsals.