
X Edition - pinter_motivazioni
X Premio Europa per il teatro a Harold Pinter

biography | reasons for awards | conferences | shows | photo

Letter of Motivation for the European Theatre Prize

Harold Pinter started out as an actor in 1951. In 2005 he won the Nobel Prize
for Literature. In the intervening half-century he has been many things:
playwright, screen-writer, director, poet and performer. But his greatest
achievement has been to re-write the rules of drama. He has
created poetry out of everyday speech with its pauses, hesitations and
repetitions. He has constantly explored, like a theatrical Proust, the
pervasive power of memory. And, in a sequence of remarkable plays from The Room
(1957) to Celebration (2000), he has demolished the idea of the
omniscient author: instead of manipulating character to a chosen end, Pinter
presents the evidence as he sees it and allows the spectator freedom of
But, although Pinter is a true theatrical poet, his work and life are filled
and the mis-use of language by those in power. There are
many other facets to Pinter: the Cockney humourist, the skilled movie-writer,
the heavyweight actor, the cricket-loving Englishman. But, if Pinter's plays
are performed the world over, it is because they touch a universal chord. And
what everyone recognises is that we live in a world of fear and anxiety briefly
alleviated by memories of past happiness. Pinter speaks to audiences everywhere
and to generations yet unborn; which makes him an ideal recipient of the Europe
Theatre Prize.