The power of silence in the play, Homecoming?

The "Pinter Pause," as it has been called, is a characteristic of many of Harold Pinter's plays. Pinter once asserted that silence can either be the complete absence of conversation or the complete inundation of conversation from all parties. The two characters who use pauses extensively in their conversation in The Homecoming are Teddy and Max. For Teddy, his pauses are bouts of hesitancy where he is unsure of what to say. This exemplifies the complete absence of conversation because Teddy is unable to fill in the gaps left by his family and his life. For Max, his pauses are breaks in his reminiscing when he is discussing the past ad nauseam. These broken monologues sometimes take up several minutes' worth of the play. It is almost as if he has so many memories, so many different things to say, that he cannot make up his mind which stories or details to relate. This explains both the fragmentary picture of the past that Max conveys and how sometimes silence can convey more meaning than speech.