ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Pinter’s working relationship with Peter Hall. Hall’s reinvention of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre into the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the thought process behind it created an ideal environment for Pinter’s theatre work.
Hall’s approach to directing Shakespeare was central to the RSC and this approach also made him particularly suited to directing Pinter. This chapter then looks at Pinter’s letter to the director of the infamously badly received first production of The Birthday Party (1958), relating it both to the earlier writing detailed in the previous chapter and to a production of The Birthday Party by the RSC in 1964 which Pinter directed. This explores how the reception of the play differed, what changes Pinter made, and how this helped to re-establish the play and playwright’s reputation and cemented his relationship with the RSC. This was followed in 1965 by The Homecoming, which was the major triumph of Pinter’s time with the company.
The perspective of actors who have written about their work on Pinter and Shakespeare also links back to Pinter’s earlier view and Hall’s approach to text. The significant impact that Pinter has had on the modern stage can be seen in how some Shakespeare productions have incorporated elements of the Pinteresque, using those elements as theatrical short-hands to understand Shakespeare’s characters.
