Apprentice to Two Masters

Abstract

During late 1950, 1951 and 1952 Pinter experienced, in his own phrase, ‘a golden age’,¹ touring Ireland with one of the last of the great actor-managers, Anew McMaster. McMaster had been an itinerant actor-manager from 1925 onwards, taking his company around Ireland and across the world in a repertoire of classical and Shakespearian plays. The roles which made his reputation were Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Petruchio, Richard III, Shylock and, above all, Othello. Rarely playing outside his company, unconnected with films and television, he explained his nomadic existence with the comment, ‘I suppose I’m a wanderer and I like playing in the theatre. It makes no difference to me if I’m on Broadway or in the smallest village hall in Ireland. The only thing that matters is that I am playing.’²