Pinter's dramatic figures are curiously perspectival creatures who exist on several levels at once, and who by virtue of the deliberate distortion that went into their creation show close affinities with Mannerism. "Harold Pinter: Towards a" "Poetics of His Plays" examines Pinter's stage plays from "The Room" to "One for the Road, " as well as several plays for radio and television, by focusing on their Mannerist traits; it presents its conclusions within the larger context of an inquiry into the principles and rules that can be said to inform Pinter's -open- drama."