ABSTRACT
Pinter, who eschewed didactic work lacking complexity, attempted “out of irritation” he said, “a play with a satirical point.” But he dismissed it as “heavily satirical, and quite useless,” because “I never began to like any of the characters, they really didn’t live at all. So I discarded the play at once.” (Bensky, 361) That play was The Hothouse. It would be twenty-one years before he brought the play out and produced it himself. But at the time, cognizant of the importance of characters who are fully alive, Pinter found, “The characters were so purely cardboard,” he put the play aside, perhaps wisely for the reception and reputation of his work and his career. (361) Yet when the play was produced, it proved an engrossing, delightfully disturbing play.
