The Terror of Time: Pinter's A Kind of Alaska

Abstract

Abstract This article examines theatrical and cinematic time in two works inspired by Oliver Sacks's book Awakenings (1973): Pinter's A Kind of Alaska (1983) and the film Awakenings (1990). In both works, characters are confronted by the passage of time, but as a result of the differences between the theatrical and film media, time is presented very differently, with Pinter's work resisting the continuity presumed in film. The article references the history of time and studies in time and literature.