The Artist as Con Man in No Man's Land

The Artist as Con Man in No Man's Land ALBERT E. KALSON FROM LOVE'S COMEDY TO WHEN WE DEAD A WAKEN, Henrik Ibsen frequently centered his dramatic works on an artist-protagonist. Such a structure enabled him to mine his own experience as he explored the relationship between the artist and the family and society which sometimes accepted him but often forced him to question his endeavor. Most major modern dramatists have followed Ibsen's lead. August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Luigi Pirandello and Eugene O'Neill have all revealed the artist's private anguish as impetus toward creativity. If the artist is rarely the focus of the plays of George Bernard Shaw, he nevertheless found it necessary occasionally to place such a figure within the framework of a play, as in Candida, The Doctor's Dilemma, or Man and Superman, in which Octavius, the artist, is upstaged by John Tanner, the champion of the life-force. But even Tanner recognizes the world's need for its artists: "For mark you, Tavy, the artist's work is to shew us ourselves as we really are."1 And such contemporary British dramatists as Tom Stoppard (Travesties), Edward Bond (Bingo, The Fool) and David Storey (Life Class) have continued "to shew us ourselves" by restoring the artist to a central position within their work. A notable exception among contemporary British writers for some time has been Harold Pinter. Stanley, the protagonist of The Birthday Party (1958), may once have been a concert pianist; then again, he may merely have been a piano player in a concert party. In Old Times (1971), Deeley, claiming to have written and directed a film, says, "My name is Orson Welles.'" Both Stanley and Deeley, however, under339 340 ALBERT E. KALSON score the fact that nothing is fixed in Pinter's universe: they may indeed be musician and filmmaker, yet their careers as artists are incidental to the plays in which they figure prominently. Pinter's first serious consideration of art and the artist belatedly takes place in No Man's Land (1975), a play which seems at first to defy interpretation. A sueces d'estime in Britain and America, due in part to the wittily compelling performances of John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, it has been called an exploration of the "fear of old age" and a study in stasis.' The play inspired one English critic to drive to London's Bolsover Street to determine whether or not the complexities of getting there are accurately described by one of its characters; they are not, he reported.' Less adventurous American critics urged audiences to submit to the play, but not to inquire too deeply into its meaning.' Perhaps the cause of the confusion is Pinter himself. In confronting the problems of the artist at last, the enigmatic dramatist has chosen to remain unconventional by ignoring the traditional approaches - family and society, guilt and responsibility. Instead, Pinter offers process- a daring display of the creative imagination at work. In No Man's Land, four characters "con" each other and themselves as Pinter reveals the means by which artist cons audience. For the creative act is a sleight of hand: now you see it, now you don't. For those who do see, Pinter's recent work sheds light on his entire canon, just as its own mysteries can be penetrated with the aid of what has come before. Specifically, the functions of the four characters in No Man's Land as projections as well as aspects of one another are more readily grasped after an examination of the relationships of the three characters in Old Times. If Stanley in The Birthday Party is a victim of indefinable but universal fears, indefinite yet infinite menace, the anguish of Deeley in Old Times is the anguish of all men. Deeley inhabits a present shaped by a past. But if that past is more imagined than actual, as it may be, how valid is his assessment of the present? Through Anna in Old Times, Pinter offers a key to the problem of man and the experiences which have shaped him, as well as an indication of the technique he will...