OLD TIMES
Touring; seen at Richmond Theatre
7 April, 2007
***
There is something quite instructive about seeing a Harold Pinter play
in a matinee performance at a touring theatre (Richmond, in this case).
We cognoscenti rightly laud him as one of the dramatic giants of the
20th century, but then in the interval one hears exchanges such as that
between the two women sitting behind me: "I don't know where it's
set... It's as if those two
know each other, and she
doesn't." Which, I suppose, is in some ways exactly the kind of
response desired. In this, one of Pinter's most economical triangular
plays, "those two" are Deeley and visitor Anna, who are as it were
duelling with anecdotes and reminiscences in order to define Kate, who
is now Deeley's wife but was once Anna's close friend and possibly her
lover. Each stakes their claim by locating her within a particular kind
of narrative and a certain way of living and feeling; Kate herself pays
little or no attention until a coruscating final speech which reduces
both others to silent impotence.
Peter Hall, who directed the première of Old Times in 1971 and returns to it
for this Theatre Royal Bath touring production, is of course one of the
grand masters of staging Pinter. Neil Pearson as Deeley is almost
saturnine, after an opening duet of the kind of intimacy usually
overlooked in Pinter's writing; Susannah Harker's Anna is a little
overplayed, beginning with an effusive torrent in which every
inhalation is a semi-vocalised gasp and developing into a more overt
tussle where we can almost see her aiming each dart of (real or
pretended) recollection. But the fulcrum is Kate, and Janie Dee is
perfectly cast. As an actress Dee is effortlessly seductive, in a
playful rather than a siren way; consequently, throughout the short
play (only an hour and a half including interval), one can always
understand why Deeley and Anna vie for privileged status with Kate, yet
also see that such closeness is hers to bestow rather than theirs to
commandeer. Only the closing flare of light strikes a quite unnecessary
note in an otherwise tightly controlled chamber piece.
Written for the Financial Times.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights
reserved.
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