Surveying Pinter's career on the occasion of the 40-anniversary Broadway production of the play at the Cort Theatre in "The New Yorker", the critic John Lahr describes the impact of experiencing it: The Homecoming' changed my life. Before the play, I thought words were just vessels of meaning; after it, I saw them as weapons of defence. Before, I thought theatre was about the spoken; after, I understood the eloquence of the unspoken. The position of a chair, the length of a pause, the choice of a gesture, I realised, could convey volumes."