Comedy of menace

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Further information: Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work and Selected bibliography for Harold Pinter

Comedy of menace is a term used to describe the plays of David Campton and Harold Pinter by drama critic Irving Wardle, borrowed from the subtitle of Campton's play The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace, in reviewing their plays in Encore in 1958.[1][2] "Comedy of menace" and "comedies of menace" caught on and have been used generally in advertisements and in critical accounts, notices, and reviews to describe Pinter's early plays and some of his later work as well.[1]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Merritt 5, 9, 225–28, 326, citing Wardle.
  2. ^ Billington 106.

[edit] References

  • Billington, Michael. Harold Pinter. 1996. Rev. ed. London: Faber & Faber, 2007.
  • Merritt, Susan Hollis. Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter. 1990. Rpt. with a new preface. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1995. ISBN 0822316749 (10). ISBN 9780822316749 (13).
  • Wardle, Irving. "The Birthday Party". Encore 5 (July–Aug. 1958): 39–40. Rpt. in The Encore Reader: A Chronicle of the New Drama. Ed. Charles Marowitz, Tom Milne, and Owen Hale. London: Methuen, 1965. 76–78. (Reissued as: New Theatre Voices of the Fifties and Sixties. London: Eyre Methuen, 1981.)
  • –––. "Comedy of Menace". Encore 5 (Sept.–Oct. 1958): 28–33. Rpt. in The Encore Reader and New Theatre Voices 86–91.

[edit] See also

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