The Caretaker was Harold Pinter's first successful play, first staged in 1960 in London. The play is a subtle exploration of madness, power, and the inertia at the core of many people's lives. But because The Caretaker is such a subtle piece of theatre, it might be worth recapping the plot of the play (if we can call it a 'plot' as such) before proceeding to an analysis of its themes. The dumb waiter: Two hit-men, Ben and Gus, are waiting in a basement...

Harold Pinter's latest full-length play is set against the decayed elegance of a house in London's Hampstead Heath. Two men face each other over a drink. Do they know each other, or is each performing an elaborate charade of recognition? The ambiguity -- and the comedy -- intensify with the arrival of two younger men, the one ostensibly a manservant, the other a male secretary. All four inhabit a no man's land between time present and time remembered,...