SOURCE: “Comedies of Terror,” in The New Yorker, Vol. 38, No. 42, December 8, 1962, pp. 148-51.

In the following review, Oliver gives high praise to The Dumb Waiter and The Collection,.

The problem this week is to give you some idea of the brilliance and originality and wild humor of The Dumbwaiter and The Collection, two one-acters by Harold Pinter at the Cherry Lane, without at the same time revealing too many of the surprises. The Dumbwaiter is one of his early plays; The Collection is his most recent. On the evidence of both, and of last year's The Caretaker, it seems to me that Mr. Pinter, right from the start, has broken comedy into its components and taken for himself the element of cruelty to probe and explore and juggle around. All three plays are comedies about torture and menace—about, I guess, practical jokes. (That is not all they...