The English department will continue its annual series of staged readings by members of the faculty with the presentation of three short plays by Harold Pinter at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 14, in the lecture hall of the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St.

Considered Britain's leading living playwright, Pinter is also an actor, director, screenwriter, novelist, poet, essayist and political activist. Pinter first came to critical notice with the production of "The Birthday Party" in 1958.

Influenced by Beckett and other absurdist writers, Pinter's style has been more influential on English-language playwrights -- including American writer David Mamet -- than any other dramatist's work, according to Murray Biggs, associate professor (adjunct) of English and theater studies, who will direct the program of readings.

"Indeed," says Biggs, "[Pinter's style] has earned its own adjective, 'Pinteresque,' to describe a banal verbal surface, often deprived to the point of stasis, yet cloaking layers of emotional frustration and unrest, physical and psychological threat, sexual invitation, and abruptly outrageous comedy."

The staged reading, which will take place on Valentine's Day, also complements Pinter's favorite dramatic theme. "Pinter's forte is the allusiveness of intimate relationships, and the elusiveness of their meaning," Biggs concludes.

The Pinter works being presented include "Family Voices" (1981) and "Landscape" (1968), both of which were first performed on BBC Radio; and "Night" (1969), first performed on stage. The works have been chosen to complement the British Art Center's exhibition of paintings by Francis Bacon, who admired Pinter's plays.

The readers for the performance will be Marie Borroff, Sterling Professor Emeritus of English; David Quint, the George M. Bodman Professor of English and Comparative Literature; Claude Rawson, the Maynard Mack Professor of English; John Rogers, associate professor of English; and Mary Floyd-Wilson, Laura King and Michael Thurston, assistant professors of English.

The reading, which will last about 75 minutes, is free and open to the public.