UNDERSTANDING HAROLD PINTER (1st video of 2 on this) Acting Coach NYC

This is FILM "1" (of 2) of the amazing New York acting-coach John Windsor-Cunningham's explanation of the 'strange' moments in the plays of Pinter, showing at the same time how to deal with strange parts of Shakespeare, Becket, and other playwrights. His workshops have been described by the Royal
National Theatre's education department as "second to none", and more free advice is available free on his website www.Windsor-Cunningham.com

[@carpjrs73]

I first encountered the works of Harold Pinter at the age of 11 in 1984, ITV screened a adaptation of his 1981 play A Kind of Alaska; it haunted me for the next 6 or 7 years. During 1991 I read all of Pinter’s plays up to that time and 2 years later attended the original production of Moonlight; I also attended the first productions of Ashes to Ashes and Celebration, and revival/touring productions of The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, Old Times (Pinter festival in Dublin c.1998), No Man’s Land, Betrayal, The Collection, The Lover, A Kind of Alaska, One For The Road and The Room. His screenwriting, adapting his own works, or those of other writers, such as The Servant, Accident, The Go-Between, The French Lieutenant’s Women, The Comfort of Strangers are massively underrated. His unfilmed Proust Screenplay is a tour-de-force; managing to condense Marcel Proust’s 7 Volume masterpiece into a, roughly, 3 hour script with an understanding of the source material only another great writer could bring. His only novel The Dwarfs and his poetry are forgettable, certainly the weakest of his writing. And I know a lot of mediocre writers have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but that isn’t to say the accolade is worthless. Finally, and I know HP would appreciate a cricket reference, I will end this missive with 52 80 10 6996 99.94 334 29 13 7.

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Thanks for the Bradman reference and the rest. My hero was Hutton, and we adopt them into our private family, and breath a sigh of relief to hear that other HP 'sons' are still going strong. I'd produce his plays now but I live in the USA where Disney is king. Still,, maybe next year. Best back to you, John Windsor-Cunningham

[@anupamsingh1056]

Thank you so much for this video. It was a great help. I'm really happy that I stumbled across this lesson of your's. This comment section feels like coming home. We seem to understand each other.

[@chrisprobert5340]

I'm 46 and, to my shame, only recently looking at Pinter. Your insight and advice is immeasurably helpful. Thank you John...

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Several of my friends say it's just him and Shakespeare ! , and I plan to put up a video here with them explaining why by the end of the year. John Windsor-Cunningham

[@mariahcarey9470]

@@NewYorkActingCoach hi John

[@mariahcarey9470]

@@NewYorkActingCoach did you watch Alan Rickman's Creditors ?

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

@@mariahcarey9470 No, Alan and I fell out I'm afraid. But I''ll look up the details of Creditors some time. Best, John Windsor-Cunningham

[@mariahcarey9470]

@@NewYorkActingCoach thank you for replying. I guess you didn't buy Madly Deeply-Alan's diaries that have been released by his widow?

[@meriamm000]

I have had quite a hard time in understanding The Room when I first read it. Thanks a lot for the video!

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Thank you! You're the first responder! The big thing for me has always been the 'fun' had in doing his plays. Hope you have some. John

[@baronzaebos8888]

I've often though Pinters work was some kind of obsessional acceptance of the banal. The plays clearly have multiple subtexts but you always feel a danger of losing the audience in the flatness of the dialogue.

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Audiences lose Pinter because actors let him down by not studying the lines long enough, and by being pushed into limited ways of saying the lines by directors who need a good coach. No line, however simple, need ever be even slightly banal, if serious work is done on it. It needs actors not stars, and massive experience. Most actors and most directors should leave Harold alone. John Windsor-Cunningham

[@baronzaebos8888]

Thanks very much for responding. I never thought about the significance of delivering the lines as key to Pinter. I bet if Shakespeare were alive today he would also be seething that his plays were so badly communicated.

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

@@baronzaebos8888 "Seething" is exact;y what S would be doing. I've been trying to cast a play about Shakespeare for a month and can't find anyone who'd die for it, not because of the play but because so few actors want to climb Everest. But perseverance is the trick. John Windsor-Cunningham

[@jackjohnhameld6401]

Reading Harold Pinter helped me to half-understand so many people, helped me to deal with feelings of alienation and even horror. After Michael Billington's biography and Pinter's own prose works, this approach from Mr Windsor-Cunningham has been the most helpful. I wish I had seen more productions of Pinter, but I have watched films of Pinter's work again and again, The Caretaker, The Birthday Party, The Servant, Accident etc. It is well to remember that Pinter experienced street antisemitism in London after the war from Oswald Mosley's thugs.

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Thanks for kind words. Some perfectly intelligent people hate Pinter, (even some friends of mine!) - but as long as we 'get' what we truly want from SOME of these writers that keeps us going, and glad you found it in Harold. John Windsor-Cunningham

[@michaelarturo6119]

I've been reading Pinter for over 50 years and have never had a problem understanding him. But I know why people don't understand him. He lies. His characters lie. His characters are "play-actors" within the plays they are living. They don't reveal their true selves, they don't reveal their motives, we learn about them through their lies and through their "play-acting." We need to watch them to understand them, because everything they say demands scrutiny. No other playwright before or since demands that of an audience. As an audience, 90% of are thrown by, angered by and even upset by this and can not invest the time,intellect or the investigatory abilities needed to understand the motives of Pinter's characters. We expect a walk-me-through- this guide to his plays. We selfishly expect this through the conditioning of television shows and plays we've seen where characters reveal themselves and their motive all within the first ten minutes of the Act One. Pinter eliminates that, strips that veneer away, then fills the air with the commonality of every day speech, which confuses the viewer even further as banal every day speech often is filled with inconsistencies. In reality, Pinter's plays are really quite fun and easy to understand - once you understand you are watching characters who are play-actors themselves concealing and revealing themselves and their motives as we do in real life. And quite witty at doing so. Why are Harold Pinter's characters all liars and play-actors? It's a trust issue. If one does even a cursory look at Pinter's background and upbringing, the distrust of institutions and individuals is apparent. It's what led him to be influenced by Kafka's "The Trial" which evident in his first full-length play "The Birthday Party."

[@toobakabir6254]

thank you for this insight. helped me greatly!

[@rowdeo8968]

I think his plays are transcendental. He pited words against banality he used words like swords. The birthday party struck me as control of humans with the two caregivers. First I thought they were going to be paid killers than I realized the two were pushing Stanley into locked syndrome a paralytic controlled environment.

[@ellie-tk4jy]

Why though?

[@ajs41]

Wonderful video, thanks. Just watched the very weird version of Dumb Waiter with John Travolta and Tom Conti.

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Yes it is strange, but unless the actors (and director) are familiar with the old British comedians on which much of the dialogue is based, and with Bekett's Waiting for Godot where the links border on plagiarism, it's hard for anyone involved to know how to approach the play. John.

[@winifredjones300]

Thankyou John, if I may call you John when I haven’t met you. I’ve recently become quite fascinated by Harold Pinter and his clever style, the simplicity of settings and lines. How he uses less words but still he gets the tension the meaning across. Thankyou for this insightful video.. I’m directing The Dumb Waiter for our local theatrical group. In Foster Australia. I need all the help I can get to get to help the actors, who by the way are two females! I know! How would Harold feel? Much appreciate your interesting views.

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Hi, - thanks for kind words. Always glad to hear from Australia as my mother was from Melbourne. Harold would be totally happy about women doing THE DUMB WAITER - He directed me once, and was as easy and open as you could wish. And any way in which your actors can manage to make the lines genuine - whether by being deeply stupid, or quite smart - can work, - it depends on you and the actors. If you get stuck on one thing please use the Contact page on my website , ( Windsor-Cunningham.com ) or direct email ( [e-mail] ) not here please. No charge for answering a question. John.

[@winifredjones300]

Thankyou very much. That’s very kind and generous. I’m enjoying all your videos. I understood and love HP a little more. You have an easy, amusing, entertaining style. Looking good as well. Love that you’re still working and don’t intend stopping. I was brought up in Brighton near Melbourne, as you would know. Melbourne my home city. Favourite along with London and NY. Cheers. Pixie Winifred Jones

[@dominique2693]

The only play I could ever read is unusually accessible."Betrayal!

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

And yet it is consistently performed as if the lines were all weird and odd. Harold would go mad if he were around. John Windsor-Cunningham

[@davidjames9626]

Well then for you 'the key' is in "Betrayal".. Looking for meaning is a false premise in the plays of Pinter (and other's) because, then, the point will be missed (if there was one, which there is, but it's not linear) it's a question of being open and not pre occupied..

[@SimonKelk]

Bunny, DON'T JUMP!!!

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Bunny is well-protected, currently wedged between Shakespeare and Stoppard on a bookshelf, but I will take your warning and make sure he cannot jump and has no wish to. Thanks for seeing the central point of this video. Windsor-Cunningham.com

[@antonioubaldi94]

+John Windsor-Cunningham There is a speech made by Harold Pinter in Hamburg on being awarded the 1970 German Shakespeare Prize. In this speech he explains perfectly his relationship with the words he puts down on paper and how the characters emerge from them. It could complete the information and help people understanding.

[@LiberiFatali]

Wait! the epidemic, soo.. did they die or did they wake up? or did they all go back into a coma and die? I'm confused

[@rowdeo8968]

I dont know why my computer triplicates

[@davidjames9626]

The problem with Pinter is not Pinter.. The problem is in the 'understandings' and connections of the observer and it is no more than something(s) to trip up over.. as with Beckett to attempt to explain is futile; if you get it (the plays) there is nothing to prove, the connections in the brain, as a response, produce a pattern that feeds the conscious- it is un-explainable: and that fact (un-explainable-as a whole, that is) is all that there is to it. this fact does not mean that Pinter and those like him cannot be explored (as an objective subject in itself- apart from the production of the plays of course) and objectified, but to attempt to explain usually means that ones shoe laces get tangled up, and it is much easier to walk free of entwined shoe laces..However it is good to see someone dealing with (in this case Pinter) in a non didactic and immediate manner..engaging..thank you.(from my speck of understanding)

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Yes, but some lines can be explained, and many actors and directors, AS WITH MANY OTHER PLAYS, need some pushing. I worked with Harold himself on this one so I think I've got it right, but thanks for your additional thoughts. John Windsor-Cunningham

[@davidjames9626]

@@NewYorkActingCoach Thank you.. my observation was not about 'lines being explained', of course many lines are open to interpretation, I was referring to the so called 'meaning' of a play or meaning of the playwright.. anyway thank you for responding.

[@dionlindsay2]

David James: that seems right (referring to your original post). Is it the same kind of thing TS Eliot calls the objective correlative?

[@davidjames9626]

@@dionlindsay2 I've just read up on 'objective correlative' and I can see its reasonings, but like much of literary criticism it tends to go off in many directions to the point of needing many (it sems) hours of research..and I'm not a scholar and have to eat sleep follow 'the grind' etc etc, but thank you for your comment, it is appreciated when someone takes the time to read , digest and comment..

[@saraafshar152]

I don't know why 29 years?

[@NewYorkActingCoach]

Sorry, I can't remember saying 29 years. Remind me at my email address if you think it matters and I'll answer. John Windsor-Cunningham [e-mail]

[@rowdeo8968]

I think his plays are transcendental. He pited words against banality he used words like swords. The birthday party struck me as control of humans with the two caregivers. First I thought they were going to be paid killers than I realized the two were pushing Stanley into locked syndrome a paralytic controlled environment.

[@rowdeo8968]

I dont know why my computer triplicates