Harold Who? An Ode to Pinter in One Act. By Alexander Zaitchik

I am currently traveling in a part of the world populated by brown natives and British, Israeli and European tourists. That’s it. There are no Americans, which makes me a sort of roving ambassador/shit sweeper. It is my daily duty to remind locals and fellow travelers that not every U.S. citizen believes in Jesus Christ Our Lord Our Savior, that New York is not near New Orleans, and that Bush’s numbers are currently in the toilet. It’s also my responsibility not to sound stupid and oafish. This last part is the hardest.

So when Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for letters last week, panic ensued. Not in the streets and cafes of West London, just in my head. It’s one thing when a young Nepalese or Congolese novelist wins the Nobel and you can’t think of a single one of their books. But when the laureate writes (and directs) in English and is roughly the same age as Norman Mailer, anyone with private pretensions of any size will panic at drawing a Nobel-sized blank. Especially when surrounded by Commonwealth types who already suspect you’re just another Innocent Abroad.

Last week I drew a blank.

To stave off the panic, I riffed on Harold Pinter’s name, trying to jog some dusty bit of knowledge loose through word association. Harold Wilson: the Labour Prime Minister during the 1960s. Punter: what Brits call weasely assholes. Pint: the unit by which they mete out beer.

Then the words slowly came into focus: The Party. The title turned up in a dusty mental file marked “Pinter, Harold—UK, plays, postwar.” That one title was enough for me. I relaxed. I had me some culture, after all.

Pinter’s Wikepedia entry later informed me that the play is actually called The Birthday Party, but I gave myself partial credit. I had read the play, or at least some of it, in college. About The Birthday Party I remember almost nothing. I have only a vague recollection of a nude woman driving a car on stage, but it’s possible this image is from one of the other plays in that book, a 60s-era paperback entitled, The Birthday Party and Other Plays, or something like that.

Basically, like the rest of America, I know fuck all about the works of this Nobel winning British playwright. Like most Americans, what I do know about him has nothing to do with his art. I know only that he opposed the war in Iraq in bright colors, has long been a critic of American foreign policy, hates the Bushies big-time, and hates Tony Blair bigger-time. How much does Harold Pinter hate them? Even if he were an unpublished playwright, Pinter the polemicist might still have gone down in history for a world record in blistering high-mode anti-war cant. He has, since the war, put into print some of the most vicious Bush attacks since Hunter S. Thompson suggested that the entire presidential family be boiled alive in a vat of bubbling poison. Pinter’s op-eds are the British text equivalent of Steve Bell’s monkey and poodle caricatures in the Guardian.

Pinter’s attacks on the UK-US leadership are not always original, but they have been athletically sustained over the last couple of years, even as he battles lung cancer at 75. Consider this heartfelt tirade delivered in the House of Commons on the eve of war, 2003: 

One of the more nauseating images of the year 2002 is that of our Prime Minister kneeling in the church on Christmas Day praying for peace on earth and good will towards all men while simultaneously preparing to assist in the murder of thousands of totally innocent people in Iraq.

I’ve been taken to task recently by the American Ambassador to Britain for calling the US Administration a blood thirsty wild animal. All I can say is: take a look at Donald Rumsfeld’s face and the case is made.

I believe that not only is this contemplated act criminal, malevolent and barbaric, it also contains within itself a palpable joy in destruction. Power, as has often been remarked, is the great aphrodisiac, and so, it would seem, is the death of others.

I think it’s fair to say that the Nobel committee isn’t that worried about regaining the confidence of conservative critics who say the Literature prize has been hopelessly compromised by the selection of outspoken lefty critics of the Iraq war (i.e., Gunter Grass). Pinter is about as blisteringly political as artists get, and wears his many embassy-event ejections like badges of honor.

Since Pinter’s plays are known for their politics and long silences, it should be easy to produce a short Pinteresque One Act in honor of his Nobel award. I call it, “The Child.”

The set: A traditional corner pub, somewhere in England.

Albert Schweitzer is sitting at the bar, reading a comic book, sipping an orange soda.

[This goes on for 15 minutes.]

Tony Blair walks up to the bar, looking confused and holding a 120 mm tank shell tipped with Depleted Uranium.

Blair: Pardon me, is anybody sitting here?

Schweitzer: Maybe, maybe not.

Blair shrugs and sits down. Puts shell on stool next to him.

Both are silent for 20 minutes.

[Finally Schweitzer turns to Blair]: Prime Minister, tell me, do you know what is green, hangs from a wall, and sings?

Blair shrugs.

Schweitzer: The mutilated body of an Iraqi child after stepping on an unexploded cluster bomb!

Blair, laughing: Come off it, old chap. How does the mutilated body of an Iraqi child after stepping on an unexploded cluster bomb hang from a wall and sing. And how is it green?

Schweitzer: What? You’ve never seen a corpse? They’re greenish. And if not, then you get a brush and some paint—and it’s green!

Blair: Very well then. But tell me, how does the mutilated body of an Iraqi child after stepping on an unexploded cluster bomb hang from a wall?

Schweitzer: Ach! Simple. You get yourself some rope, a nail, a hammer…

Blair: Fine, fine. But I can’t see how the mutilated body of an Iraqi child after stepping on an unexploded cluster bomb can sing?

Schweitzer pauses, then shrugs: Well, two for three ain’t bad!

Both men convulse in loud laughter. Blair falls off his bar stool, knocking over the tank shell. A naked woman drives an antique Edsel onto stage, throwing flower petals and rice.

[The curtain hits the cast.]