The preeminent playwright of his generation, Harold Pinter honed his literary skills during his twenties, traveling the lonely countrysides of Britain and Ireland as the actor David Baron in different repertory theater companies. The ellipses and pauses injected into his subsequent scripts are the direct result of his actor's crucible, having learned in everything from generic detective thrillers to Shakespeare how long a ham can hold a provincial audience's rapt attention with silence. Though certainly influenced by the spare, oblique wry dialogue of spiritual mentor Samuel Beckett and to a