The technique of casting doubt upon everything by matching each apparently clear and unequivocal statement with an equally clear and unequivocal statement of its contrary—used rather crudely in some parts of [his first play, The Room]—… is one which we shall find used constantly in Pinter's plays to create an air of mystery and uncertainty. The situations involved are always very simple and basic, the language which the characters use is an almost uncannily accurate reproduction ...
Frequently Pinter's plays begin comically but turn to physical, psychological, or potential violence—sometimes, in varying sequences, to all three. Terror inheres in a statement in The Room that the onstage room, which is occupied, is to let. Although the play turns comic again, it ends on a note of physical violence. In the early plays menace lurks outside, but it also has psychological roots. The titular room—in which the heroine lives, fearful of an outside force she does not specify...
In the following review of Pinter's The Room and Celebration, produced as a double-bill, Morley observes that both plays, like much of Pinter's work, explore themes of sexual jealousy, nameless terrors, and violence. Morley asserts that Celebration is Pinter's “funniest script in years.”
