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
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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
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- PublisherEyre Methuen
- Publication date1980
- ISBN 10 0413471209
- ISBN 13 9780413471208
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages154
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Rating