Pinter Triptych: Three Essays on Two Monologues

Abstract

The themselves on three the logic pieces grouped of two that of compose together Harold by this Pinter's happy triptych monologues coincidence: of reflections find the on the logic of two of Harold Pinter's monologues find themselves grouped together by happy coincidence: the papers each of us presented at the 2009 Harold Pinter Society panel at the M/MLA convention happened to converge on the logic of Pinter's monologues. That convergence, however, accompanies - and perhaps heightens - a distinct contrast in the approaches we have taken individually to examining and understanding Pinter's mono-logic. Emily Kingery's essay, the first in this grouping, presents a radically material approach to the textual interpretation of a performance piece. Focusing on Pinter's monologue, Emily explores the significance of the way Pinter's play presents itself as text and reflects on the arrangement of the words on the page as an ambiguous signifying system that complements and complicates the explicit binaries of the play's thematics. In what we hope is a productive tension with Emily's essay is Craig N. Owens's piece, which focuses on a less explicitly theatrical, but no less enactive, monologue, "Art, Truth and Politics," Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, delivered in absentia. While the problematic of absence and representation connect Emily's and Craig's essays, Craig attends to the performance of the monologue - Pinter's performance of Pint-er - as the primary signifying moment, despite the availability of a more univocal textual version. So, while Pinter is the only person who could ever play this role, its performed-ness attenuates the materiality of the speech. Judith Roof's piece departs most significantly from the literary-critical tradition. Not quite a parody, but more internally motivated than mere pastiche,