SOURCE: “Pinter's Words Cut Through,” in The Christian Science Monitor, June 24, 1964, p. 6.

In the following review, Beaufort praises the mood of “macabre menace” Pinter evokes in a production of The Birthday Party, which he also directed.

Meg: What do they do then?

Petey: They just talk.

To the unconverted, these two lines from Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party describe—more in annoyance than admiration—the nonobjective play. To those who have welcomed Mr. Pinter and comparable others, The Birthday Party speaks with an eloquence that transcends its talk. I found it fascinating.

This first full-length Pinter play said nothing to most of London's critics when it was introduced in 1958 and ran for a week. Since then, it has been done on stage and television in many parts of the world, and is scheduled for production by the Lincoln repertory company in New York. Since then, too, Mr. Pinter...