Learning on ScreenWorking with Pinter
Burton states at the onset that the documentary might serve to undermine a presiding image of Pinter as a remote and difficult writer by showing us the collaborative nature of his activity in the theatre. The film certainly captures a contented, relaxed and engaged Pinter, happy to discuss his plays, the process of directing that applies to them and the demands of acting in them. Incidental to this, we also get some interesting perspectives on the genesis of a couple of his plays, and something of his working method – or rather working attitude – as a writer. As such, this DVD is a valuable resource for actors of modern drama, and students of this material.
This is a real treat for those interested in Pinter’s work, for in no other interview published or transmitted (and I know, I’ve trawled them all) does he reflect at such length on the stagecraft, discipline and intuition demanded of the actor.
Alongside the documentary, the DVD contains a complete hour-long interview that Burton undertakes with Pinter the day after the rehearsal-room workshopping of his plays. This is a real treat for those interested in Pinter’s work, for in no other interview published or transmitted (and I know, I’ve trawled them all) does he reflect at such length on the stagecraft, discipline and intuition demanded of the actor. The conversation is friendly and reflective, and provides a crucial insight into the attitudes towards the stage of this celebrated writer. Pinter displays a characteristic reluctance to theorise, and demonstrates a certain distrust of contemporary training, preferring to steer towards issues of intuition and ‘common sense’ when considering actors’ judgements. This is partially frustrating for the viewer, as on more than one occasion the acute and probing nature of the questions is deflected by Pinter’s clear preference not to intellectualise processes which for him are intuitive and creative, but the presentation of this very attitude is in itself very telling: Pinter’s work is not a mechanism that can be unpicked to see which cogs and springs work and how, but rather is something that needs to be inhabited and experienced to be ‘understood’. This DVD does a great deal of justice to this important, and oft-forgotten, perspective.
Harry Burton has achieved what no-one else did while Pinter was alive, in capturing the author in dialogue with his own work in these ways. This DVD, then, is an important item in the catalogue of audio-visual material that survives on Pinter’s subject.
Dr Mark Taylor-Batty
Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds
