Harold Pinter: The Homecoming

In The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers makes a comment that I paraphrase to the effect that I often walk onto life's stage under the impression that I have been cast in a Gilbert Sullivan operetta and find myself in the middle of a Pinter play. I had a notion what he meant, having read The Dumb Waiter in college, but this cements my impression. Pinteresque is a dramatic version of Kafkaesque, meaning, not only morbid but also inscrutable. Pinter and Kafka both create worlds that are caricatures of our own, with rules that are beyond the comprehension of not only the characters, but also of the reader. Pinter gets specific in The Homecoming, creating a caricature of family dynamics that seems to have little resemblance to reality, but is nonetheless upsetting because, subconsciously, we know that there but for the grace of whatever go we and our loved ones. The effect is wildly unsettling, and I, for one, am reminded that we are only pretending that it all makes sense.