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Mar. 26th, 2007 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_elyanWent to see "Old Times", the Pinter play at the Arts.
Like a lot of Pinter, it can be summed up as nasty, brutish and short. very short, actually - about 1hr 20m.
The play was very much about Pinter's avowed interest - "the weasel under the cocktail cabinet" - and also his less avowed on, the uncertainty of identity. Three characters swirled arund one another, having met in previous incarnations, and remembering events yet to come. Relationships were ill-defined, the boundaries of civilised behaviour unset - the usual edges that make Pinter an interesting playwright, whatever his subject.
Unfortunately, also typically for Pinter, the play didn't exactly go anywhere. There was resolution of a sort, but no idea of how things got there, or excatly why, which made the experience slightly frustrating, especially for the classic first-night audience, composed of the great and the wizened of cambridge, many of whom doubtless show up for every first night at the Arts as a matter of course. There were certainly a lot of people at the interval trying terribly hard to enjoy the play more than they were doing.
The cast was top-notch - Neil Pearson, Susannah Harker, and Janie Dee. Of the three of them, the best was probably the one I knew least - Janie Dee. She seeme dto understand best the rhythm of Pinter's writing, which is notoriously difficult to get your head round until you realise it's how people talk when they aren't expecting to be overheard by posterity. The pauses, the elliptical remarks, the approach to arguments from oblique angles - all of these have a lot in common with real life. Pearson I warmed to as the evening progressed - his accent flickered from time to time, and seemed unnecessary in one who does superficial niceness with anm undercurrent of menace very well in normal circumstances.
Harker I had trouble with. She seemdd to be trying far too hard - running at the phrases, emphasis falling unnaturally (which is more noticeable in Pinter than you might imagine), and a general air of acting. Partly this was called for by her character, who is an enigma who has to impose herself on a couple, but nonetheless I found it hard to be comfortable with her portrayal (actually, I found it hard to be comfortable full stop - the front row of the balcony at the Arts is not recommended if you have legs of any significant length...).
It waqs, for all that, a good evening out, and while I would recommend it with some reservations, it's probably all for nothing as I think the run has more or less sold out anyway.
Still, better than an evening staring at the telly by a long chalk...
Like a lot of Pinter, it can be summed up as nasty, brutish and short. very short, actually - about 1hr 20m.
The play was very much about Pinter's avowed interest - "the weasel under the cocktail cabinet" - and also his less avowed on, the uncertainty of identity. Three characters swirled arund one another, having met in previous incarnations, and remembering events yet to come. Relationships were ill-defined, the boundaries of civilised behaviour unset - the usual edges that make Pinter an interesting playwright, whatever his subject.
Unfortunately, also typically for Pinter, the play didn't exactly go anywhere. There was resolution of a sort, but no idea of how things got there, or excatly why, which made the experience slightly frustrating, especially for the classic first-night audience, composed of the great and the wizened of cambridge, many of whom doubtless show up for every first night at the Arts as a matter of course. There were certainly a lot of people at the interval trying terribly hard to enjoy the play more than they were doing.
The cast was top-notch - Neil Pearson, Susannah Harker, and Janie Dee. Of the three of them, the best was probably the one I knew least - Janie Dee. She seeme dto understand best the rhythm of Pinter's writing, which is notoriously difficult to get your head round until you realise it's how people talk when they aren't expecting to be overheard by posterity. The pauses, the elliptical remarks, the approach to arguments from oblique angles - all of these have a lot in common with real life. Pearson I warmed to as the evening progressed - his accent flickered from time to time, and seemed unnecessary in one who does superficial niceness with anm undercurrent of menace very well in normal circumstances.
Harker I had trouble with. She seemdd to be trying far too hard - running at the phrases, emphasis falling unnaturally (which is more noticeable in Pinter than you might imagine), and a general air of acting. Partly this was called for by her character, who is an enigma who has to impose herself on a couple, but nonetheless I found it hard to be comfortable with her portrayal (actually, I found it hard to be comfortable full stop - the front row of the balcony at the Arts is not recommended if you have legs of any significant length...).
It waqs, for all that, a good evening out, and while I would recommend it with some reservations, it's probably all for nothing as I think the run has more or less sold out anyway.
Still, better than an evening staring at the telly by a long chalk...
