Ashes to Ashes stands as one of Harold Pinter’s most complex, most powerful,
and most emotionally wrenching works. It does contain elements that we
have seen in earlier plays—the emphasis on terror and violence perpetrated
under ideological cover of idealistic political rhetoric reminds us of
the recent political plays as well as The Birthday Party and The Hothouse;
the male character’s attempt to dominate the female character reminds us
of the more “domestic” plays. But to suggest that the play can be reduced
to Old Times meets One for the Road misses the full extent of Pinter’s
achievement. The movement from political analysis to historical meditation;
the concern with trauma and with the necessity of witnessing as a response
to that trauma; the sense that our political duty as citizens forms part
of a larger ethical responsibility constitutive of our very humanity. Pinter
takes all of these elements, and plunges us deeper and more relentlessly
into the nightmare of history than previously in his work.
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