Harold Pinter’s ‘Buried Masterpiece’? A Vaudeville Madhouse

“Set in a state-run sanatorium where the so-called ‘patients’ are actually political dissidents undergoing various excruciating corrective treatments, The Hothouse shows the casual inhumanity … with a broad, over-the-top comedy. Several scenes have the rat-a-tat patter of old-school vaudeville and there’s even an exploding cigar.”