1. At Hackney Downs Grammar School in 1947 and 1948, Pinter played the roles of...

a. Macbeth and Romeo
b. Hamlet and Othello
c. Prospero and King Lear
d. Juliet and Ophelia

2. Which one of the following pseudonyms did Pinter not utilize?

a. David Baron
b. Harold Pinta
c. Harold Baron

3. Pinter’s first produced effort as a playwright was entitled ...

a. The Room
b. The Dumbwaiter
c. A Slight Ache

4. When The Birthday Party was first staged in 1958, the critics were generally ...

a. full of praise
b. lukewarm
c. hostile

5. In The Birthday Party, what is Meg’s birthday present to Stanley?

a. a tin soldier
b. a toy drum
c. a red wagon

6. What is the occupation of Max’s son Lenny in The Homecoming?

a. boxer
b. butcher
c. pimp
d. cab driver

7. In The Caretaker, who is asked to be a caretaker?

a. Aston
b. Mick
c. Davies

8. Compared to Beckett, Pinter’s work generally...

a. discards slightly fewer conventional dramatic forms and theatrical devices.
b. is far more radical.
c. utilizes exactly the same absurdist elements.

9. In which play do we find the protagonist awakening from a 29-year sleeping sickness?


10. Pinter’s only novel, later adapted for the stage, is about three men who...

a. yearn to be writers.
b. went to school together in Hackney.
c. experience communication problems with their families.

11. Which one of the following actors has not appeared in a film in which Pinter wrote the screenplay?

a. Robert De Niro
b. Jack Nicholson
c. Al Pacino
d. Meryl Streep
e. Helen Mirren
f. Alan Bates
g. Ben Kingsley
h. Anthony Hopkins
i. Christopher Walken
j. Jeremy Irons
k. Fay Dunaway

12. In which one of the following films did Pinter appear as an actor?

a. Mansfield Park
b. Sense and Sensibility
c. Pride and Prejudice

13. In 2000 Pinter was invited by The Independent to participate in its feature "Heroes and Villains 2000." For his "Villain," Pinter submitted whose name, which The Independent "accidentally" omitted, simply citing NATO?


14. Democracy

There's no escape.
The big pricks are out.
They'll fuck everything in sight.
(three words)
poem by Harold Pinter, February 2003

15. Pinter acted in several of his own plays at one time or another. In which of the following did he not appear?

a. Mountain Language
b. The Homecoming
c. The Caretaker
d. Old Times
e. No Man’s Land
f.  One for the Road
g. The Hothouse

16. Pinter’s work has added two expressions to the contemporary lexicon, Pinteresque and...

a. Pinter ellipsis
b. Pinter pause
c. Pinter lapse

17. As a sideline, Pinter has been the long-time chairman of ...

a. a bridge club
b. a cricket club
c. a garden club

18. Pinter’s first wife, Vivien Merchant, frequently appeared in his plays. According to his response in  various interviews, did Pinter specifically write parts for her?

a. yes
b. no
c. sometimes

19. On October 13, 2005, the day Pinter’s Nobel Prize was announced, a cable TV channel erroneously announced what news?


20. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech on Dec. 10, 2005, whom did Pinter declare should be - but could not legally be - tried for war crimes?