Two of Pinter's early plays provide background to The Homecoming: The Birthday Party (1958), Pinter's first full-length play, contains all the hallmarks of Pinter's style and concerns; The Caretaker, which opened April 17, 1960, at the small Arts Theatre Club in London, explores loneliness and power struggles among three men centered on a tramp who is given a place to stay by a mentally damaged man, tins play was Pinter's first major commercial success.

Pinter's Old Times (1970), delves into time and memory, which Pinter finds to be fluid and uncertain. It also further explores the inability of a man to fully know a woman or to possess her. It is a move away from the more realistic The Homecoming.

Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet shows the influence of Pinter, especially in the use of language, on the younger American playwright. The play...