20 minutes of linguistic terrorism that'll make you furiously silent.
Harold Pinter play starring Michael Gambon. 'Your language is forbidden. It is dead. No one is allowed to speak your language. Your language no longer exists. Any questions?'
Acting
Gambon's Sergeant: smiling cruelty that chills your blood.
Writing
Pinter at his most vicious. Every silence is a weapon.
Director
Harold Pinter
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Written after Pinter visited Turkey in 1985, where Kurdish language and culture were actively suppressed. The play is a direct response to witnessing ethnic persecution.
Pinter insisted on absolute precision in timing—the original stage direction specifies exactly how long each brutal pause should last, making silence itself a character.
GB
