Harlod Pinter's Celebration is a work of biting genuis. His darkly comic look on today's society makes the play a standout in a sea of banal work in the theatre world. No American Playwright today comes close to his skill level. If you want to read well crafted theatre, you need to read Celebration and his earlier work The Room.

If you are a follower of Pinter, you will love this book because it contains both the first and latest Pinter's plays. Celebration is written this year (2000) while The Room was written way back in 1957. For the new Pinter's fan, this is also an ideal book to be introduced to the great playwright of our time. Like most of his plays, these two plays should be read slowly, paying close attention to their witty dialogues. This is definitely one of the best drama book to come out this year.

I thought this anthology of translated poems was fantastic. As a layperson and ignorant of most languages, I can't comment on the fidelity of many of the translations to the originals. But in terms of their impact in English, the great majority of the translations in this book qualify as some of the best poetry I've ever read.

One minor criticism I have of this book is that it doesn't reproduce the poems anthologised in their original language. That's a shame. For the informed reader, it is always useful to know how close a translation is to the original. On a related note, it would've been useful to have a preface by the translators telling us what criteria they used to decide which poems to include. But these are minor quibbles.

The translations in this anthology are clearly the best of their art. This is a brilliant book. Buy it.

Both of these works are wonderful in the sense of making the reader think. Not only are you thrust head first into the plays, but your perception is what makes the endings. Pinter's stlye, form and intellect deliver in both of the works and are challenging without being difficult. Both works have character that people can relate to, wonderful dialogue, and mental involovement. I highly recommend both works!

In a series of interviews between 1971 and 1993 Gussow (longtime _New York Times_ drama critic, who also coaxed a fascinating set of comments from Tom Stoppard) got Pinter to talk about how he works. Pinter refuses to comment on what his work "means," but is eager to clear the air about misperceptions about himself (such as being in a chronic state of outrage). Pinter comes across as generous as well as politically committed, suspicious of audiences, but grateful to (fellow) actors. And he clearly has a sense of humor (too rarely appreciated in his plays).

A COLLECTION OF EARLY WORKS BY THE MOST IMPORTANT ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DRAMATIST OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

THE SKETCHES WERE WRITTEN FOR A COUPLE OF REVIEWS IN AND AROUND 1959. THEY ARE TELLING SLICES OF LIFE. THEY ARE ALSO EXTREMELY FUNNY. GREAT FOR ACTORS, WHETHER PROFESSIONAL OR AMATUER.

THE SUBJECTS RUN FROM PORNOGRAPHIC BOOK STORES TO LOCAL BUS ROUTES TO SELLING NEWSPAPERS.

OFTEN OVERLOOKED BY PINTER SCHOLARS, THEY CONTAIN MANY OF THE TECHNIQUES THAT THE PLAYWRIGHT WILL DEVELOP THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER. FOR NON-SCHOLARS, THEY ARE WORTH READING IN THEIR OWN RIGHT--THEY ARE FUNNY, REVEALING, AND SUCCINCT GEMS.

This drama is a nightmare made for the theater. We don't know, and it isn't really important,if this is a political,social,existential satire or what; we can but gaze in horror at the poor victims of a bunch of demented wardens.All is shown like in an unreal light, as in a lucid dream. And moreover, this gloomiest of dramas is also uncannily funny. Creepiest Pinter's Play.

While the theater of the absurd is often regarded as distant and alienating for readers, it often carries the most profound examinations of social and historical flaws. MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE, by Harold Pinter, is a ruthlessly bitter and comic examination of the conditions of prisons where men and women are treated without regard as if they weren't part of the human race at all. In a broader context, it examines human separatism and our readiness to ignore the similarities between ourselves and other people. Through its disturbingly nonsensical dialogue, it becomes a harsh criticism of the human condition, that we are so unwilling to embrace all of mankind. MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE is a small treasure, one of the great pieces of absurd drama.

Harold Pinter uses silence like a visual artist uses negative space. He uses it as the framework around which to place his stunning, sparse dialogue. The three short plays in this collection are some of his best. The first one, 'Family Voices', tells the story of a dysfunctional family indirectly through letters they send to each other. The second play, 'One for the Road' is a tense, suspenseful piece set in an oppressive police state. The last work in the collection, 'A Kind of Alaska' features a woman waking from a coma after three decades and dealing with the fact that she is no longer a teenager.

The above descriptions don't do justice to the complexity in each play. Pinter is able to express multiple levels with very few words and simple sets. Not only have I read each of these plays, I have seen them performed and I have acted in them. The experience is nearly as intense no matter how you encounter them. This collection, in particular, does a good job of presenting the works. The words are clear and easy to read and the dialogue is well-spaced. I can recommend this collection to any fan of unusual, gripping theater.

Harold Pinter speaks his own... dialect... without cliches.

As my native language is Greek I usually find the English language plain... not this time!

Harold Pinter here attempts to remove the blindfold from most of us and on our behalf...

Intelligent and impulsive.

I performed Scene 8 from "Betrayal" in a theater class, and read the rest of the play in order to form a character analysis of Emma. I found the play intersting, but slightly odd. Some of the wording made no sense, and there were times when the references seemed out of place and just in there for laughs. The play itself was an old idea broadcast in a new way-backwards. It left me feeling bittersweet as I saw how it ended, and then saw how sweetly it started. I recommend the play for its difference in story telling, but I'm not so thrilled with it that I would insist you see a showing. It really seems to come down to the tastes of the person. This one wasn't really my taste.

This play by Harold Pinter is about a three characters who are all cheating on each other. The most interesting aspect of this play is Pinter's technique of telling the story backwards. The audience comes in at the end of the affair. From that point the story basically proceeds back through time. The only problem I have with this play is that I don't like any of the characters. Jerry and Emma seem sleazy, and Robert is just a jerk. It makes it difficult to feel anything for the characters. This definitely does not ruin the play however. If you notice this playing at your local theatre, find time to go; you will have a great time.

One of Harold Pinter's most ambitious undertakings, his 1978 play BETRAYAL ranks among his finest works. Often called a sly comedy of sexual manners, BETRAYAL encompasses much more than just adultery.

BETRAYAL has only three main characters (plus a waiter in a single scene). There is Jerry and Emma, who years before had an affair, and Emma's husband Robert, who happens to be Jerry's best friend and business partner. Pinter ingeniously has the play occur in reverse chronological order, so that it begins with a meeting between Jerry and Emma in 1977, years after their affair, and it ends with a shocking scene from 1968. The ending gives BETRAYAL a great deal of reread value, as one can go back through the play and apply the secret revealed in its final moments.

While adultery is the most evident theme of the play, it is about other forms of betrayal: how we betray our friends, betray our spouses by permitting them to break the bonds of marriage, and how our words and actions betray the secrets we strive to hide. Pinter's usual theme of the unknowability of our lifelong partners is even more strongly shown here than in other plays.

BETRAYAL is an excellent play for anyone who likes the work of Harold Pinter. Even if you became interested in the playwright's work through his late political plays like "The New World Order" and "Party Time", this more "traditional" work will excite.