Pinter the prescient

RE “When Pinter Should Have Paused for Effect” [Jan. 1]:

These are stark times. (pause)

Pinter himself has limited time. (pause)

His message is clear. (pause)

We haven’t a moment to lose. Turn, turn, turn around and see what we are doing to one another. He failed to address Third World atrocities? That’s the criticism? He stuck with First World horrors -- the ones you and I can do something about.

Did James C. Taylor know Pinter was a conscientious objector during World War II? He is a Jew. He is a pacifist.

I am proud to have worked with him at Lincoln Center in New York when I performed in the American premiere of “Landscape” and “Silence” in 1969.

Trivialize him at your own peril. Subtlety and innuendo do not hold back wiretapping and secret files. The brutal sadists he warned us about in “The Birthday Party” have arrived.

BARBARA TARBUCK

Los Angeles