Translated by: Kornél Hamvai

Harold Pinter was born into a Jewish family in East London’s working-class district. He grew up as an only child, with a strong bond to his mother. During World War II, he was evacuated to the countryside to escape the bombings. He refused military service on grounds of conscience.

The experience of separation and fear became deeply embedded in his writing. Among his literary predecessors, the influence of Kafka and Beckett is the most discernible. He was a master at depicting threatening, unpredictable systems of power – his characters often find themselves in incomprehensible, absurd situations for which no rational explanation exists.

The Hothouse

In an institution operating under strict state supervision – a hospital or sanatorium – patients live identified only by numbers, stripped of their names, identities, and freedom. The system is run by strange, bizarre figures: determined bureaucrats locked in constant power struggles.

Pinter wrote his second play in 1958, but it only reached the stage twenty-two years later, in 1980, under his own direction. During rehearsals, he made almost no changes to the text, apart from a few cuts. He wrote of it: “When I wrote it, it seemed like fantasy, but reality has caught up with it.”

The story takes place on Christmas Day: a murder and a birth disrupt the order of the institution, while its director prepares for his customary Christmas speech.

Beneath the cloak of devilish wit and absurd humor, Harold Pinter delivers a sharp political commentary on the dangers of unchecked power – a message that remains just as relevant and urgent today as when he first put it to paper.

The play was first performed in Hungarian in 1981 at the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár, under the title A melegház (The Hothouse), in a translation by Mihály Bátki and directed by Gyula Gazdag.