Revaluation: Movement and Dialogue

Abstract

As has been noted previously, Pinter has acknowledged a fundamental concern for the visualisation of characters on a stage. Their movements and actions are of prime importance to him:

I find myself stuck with these characters who are either sitting or standing, and they’ve either got to walk out of a door, or come in through a door, and that’s about all they can do.¹

Indeed, he has spoken of the initial stimulating idea for a play in terms principally concerning the positioning of characters:

The germ of my plays? I’ll be as accurate as I can about that. I went into a room and saw one person standing up and one person sitting down, and a few weeks later I wrote The Room. I went into another room and saw two people sitting down, and a few years later I wrote The Birthday Party. I looked through a door into a third room, and saw two people standing up and I wrote The Caretaker.²