The hothouse (Methuen modern plays) - Hardcover

Pinter, Harold

3.71

452 ratings by Goodreads

9780413471208: The hothouse (Methuen modern plays)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0413471209 ISBN 13: 9780413471208

Publisher: Eyre Methuen, 1980

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

A black comedy set in a government-run mental institution, The Hothouse revolves around a sinister murder plot hatched against a backdrop of corruption, sexual favors, and hopeless bureaucratic ineptitude. Beneath the surface comedy there are frightening implications concerning a bureaucracy ostensibly dedicated to humanitarian concerns, but where people are referred to by numbers and forgotten as easily as troublesome figures on a balance sheet. Written in 1958, The Hothouse was first performed at London's Hampstead Theatre in April 1980, in a production directed by Pinter himself. "A blistering funny play. . . . Hothouse is wild, impudent, fiercely funny."-Jack Kroll, Newsweek

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Harold Pinter is the author of such seminal modern dramas as The Caretaker, The Birthday Party, and The Homecoming. He is married to Lady Antonia Fraser.

Review:

"The Hothouse fuses tragedy and farce, terror and nonsense in a unique mix that is sometimes chilling, sometimes bewildering, yet always, at every moment, fiercely alive and vital." -- Elliot Norton, Boston Herald American

"The Hothouse is Pinter's funniest play." -- Ed Kalem, Time

"Characteristically cryptic and very funny, just what Kafka might have come up with." -- Carolyn Clay, The Boston Phoenix

"The playwright has an unfailing ear for institutionalized doublespeak, and The Hothouse is full of rapid-fire bits that sound like old vaudeville routines as they might have been rewritten by Ionesco." -- Frank Rich, The New York Times

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.