Harold Pinter

The master of the meaningful pause dies on Silent Night, the artist of primal Jewish dread expires on Christmas eve--a Pinteresque moment in a time of turmoil.

For generations, starting with mine, Harold Pinter made art out of what was unsaid and unseen. His work took us out of the clatter and confusion of our daily lives into bare places where we could sense what might be going on below the noisy surface of our consciousness.

Watching a Pinter play was never pleasure in the traditional sense of being entertained to distraction. It could leave us bored, puzzled, sometimes annoyed, but always moved in ways that prompted thought, discussion and, most of all, feeling.

Unmentioned in most obituaries will be his screenplay for "The Last Tycoon," Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel, directed by Elia Kazan, a confluence of 20th century talents that told more about the romantic longings and power struggles behind the making of movies than dozens of Sunset Boulevards.

Pinter was often grouped with the Theater of the Absurd, but reality was what he was after.

Playing President

In last night's Theater of the Absurd, a Lame Duck is quacking at the podium while the ducklings-in-waiting look on, pretending to listen before they waddle out for their turn on the TV stage.

You could have watched the President's last State of the Union address with the sound off and not turned it up as his would-be successors did their predictable soliloquies--Hillary Clinton with a smile as tight as duct tape, dodging questions about Bill; Barack Obama modestly insisting he's no JFK but basking in his Kennedy aura for the day; Mitt Romney mouthing "Washington is broken" platitudes followed by non-sequiturs that Harold Pinter would not have dared to write.

On his way out, George W. Bush is besieged by legislators holding out their programs to be autographed for some e-Bay auction years from now on another planet.

For a coda, a nice-looking schoolteacher named Kathleen Sebelius comes out to review the production by lecturing the "political pundits" before they review it and "obsess over the reactions of members of Congress: 'How many times was the President interrupted by applause? Did Republicans stand? Did Democrats sit?' And the rest of us will roll our eyes and think, 'What in the world does any of that have to do with me?'"

This Washington revival does ample justice to the definition of Theater of the Absurd as "broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism."

Now the actors are off to tour the hinterlands for audiences who will watch with as much puzzlement as they did last night, if they stayed awake for the whole production.