A perceptive article on the production, "Pinter’s Political Anger" by Jeff James in Exeunt, 5 Sept 2011
"... One for the Road is a coolly terrifying play, in which we see the protagonist Nicolas interrogate three members of the same family... The play vividly shows the evil of torture, and is considered by some to have marked a change in Pinter’s works, moving into more straightforwardly political territory."
"Harold Pinter... met two young Turkish women whom he found ...intelligent... he challenged the women over their country’s use of torture... [they] assured him that it was probably only communists who were treated in this way, so it didn’t matter..."
"... We can hear an echo of Pinter’s Turkish friends in US Justice Department lawyer Jay Bybee’s now infamous memo claiming that ‘certain acts may be cruel, inhumane or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within Section 2340A’s proscription against torture’. Clearly, we should still be angry..."
"...One for the Road is about power, just like his early play The Birthday Party is. In both plays, there is a moment when someone is made to sit down by someone else. It’s a little thing, but in each case Pinter invests it with terrible meaning..."
The ull article is here
http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/pinters-political-anger/