The Caretaker

The Caretaker - Harold Pinter

It is a triangle plot: old tramp falls in with two incalculable young men, brothers, fancies himself siding with one against the other, over-reaches himself. Harold Pinter, both in his original play and in the screenplay which with the minimum of alteration he has based on it, has devised a dazzling series of comic and sinister variations. The brothers live in a state of disconnection both from the outside world and from one another; they come and go without purpose, their conversation has no normal relevance to the situation they are in. The tramp is himself a disconnected figure. He has fantasies of belonging to everyday life, getting a pair of shoes from somewhere, doing a job, re-establishing his identity by recovering papers which-I don't know why it should strike on as so risible-have somehow cone to rest at Sidcup; yet every sentence every action marks him as a being who has cut adrift. This play was first performed in 1960. Harold Pinter specializes in the tragicomedy of the breakdown of communication, broadly in the tradition of the theatre of the absurds and this is demonstrated in both The Caretaker and The Birthday Party.