SOURCE: “The Hothouse: Harold Pinter's Tribute to Anger,” in English Studies, Vol. 62, No. 3, June, 1981, pp. 290-98.

In the following essay, Stamm praises The Hothouse, an early play Pinter originally suppressed, but then produced in 1980.

The Hothouse was first presented at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in April 1980 in a production directed by the author and was transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre in June. In the printed text there is a note, saying: ‘I wrote The Hothouse in the winter of 1958. I put it aside for further deliberation and made no attempt to have it produced at the time. I then went on to write The Caretaker. In 1979 I re-read The Hothouse and decided it was worth presenting on the stage. I made a few cuts but no changes.’¹

If we want to understand some of the reasons for Pinter's original dissatisfaction with the play we can turn to his...