SOURCE: “Actions That a Man Might Play: Pinter's The Birthday Party,” in Modern Drama, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1973, pp. 167-78.

In the following essay, Kaufman argues that the game of blindman's buff, central to The Birthday Party, provides an expressive structure for what Pinter sees as inherent human traits: a struggle for mastery and hostility.

Although Harold Pinter has been writing for the theatre for more than fifteen years, his achievement is still very much in question. The reasons for this uncertainty are complex, and to a large extent the complexity stems from the plays themselves: from the carefully contrived ambiguities that refuse to offer ultimate coherence; from the minimal plots, adumbrated characters, and the multiplicity of inferences his dramatic actions excite. Early in his career Pinter acknowledged Kafka and Beckett as the major influences in his treatment of plots and characters. But perhaps even closer in spirit to Pirandello...