Tea and memory cakes, anyone?

Deeley and Kate are becalmed in lives of low-voltage domesticity in a house in the country. It’s quiet. You can hear the sea. An old friend, Anna, is coming to stay. She and Kate shared living quarters in London 30 years ago. Anna used to steal Kate’s underwear. She now lives somewhere outside Taormina.

This much we think we know. But as Harold Pinter draws us into the shadowy lives and fractured memories of the threesome – played out here on a sparse set with its back wall rag-rolled to resemble a clouded skyscape – even this slim grasp of meaning begins to slip. [More]  

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We all enjoy the memory of happy events, half remembered songs, snatches of dialogue, moments of joy, often so processed and programmed in our mind’s eye that we confuse reality and fiction. Often the memory of a real event may assume the shape and texture of an imaginary happening, and it is exactly this trick of human memory which Old Times by Harold Pinter offers the audience.

Written in 1971, he experiments with the complexities of language resulting in a dialogue both witty and subtly ironic. It gives the impression of ordinary conversation. Memory is touched by the songs from an earlier era with ‘Blue Moon’, ‘Smoke Gets in your Eyes’ and ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ built around a dialogue which offers a superb interpretation of how people talk.

It is funny, sharp and penetrating, and the Globe production successfully delivers audience impact because of the quality of its director and a highly competent acting trio.

Director Lisa Warrington has avoided allowing the stray and disconnected overtones of Pinter’s writing to distort the work.  She has brought the cast together with a sense of purpose and style which enhances Pinter’s words and also exploits the subtlety of the pauses and silences which are so much part of the atmosphere he intended. In his own words, quoted from the text:  "There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened. There are things I remember which may never have happened but as I recall them so they take place." (Old Times, Act 1)

Pinter’s work demands a high degree of professionalism and team work in its presentation. Vivienne Laube, one of Dunedin’s most experienced and accomplished performers, plays Kate with great sympathy and understanding, reaching out and touching the audience with a superb performance. And as if that was not enough, the audience is treated to the appearance of another doyenne of the local stage in Terry MacTavish’s Anna, who exercises her formidable talent to breathe life into Pinter’s creation. Ross Johnston as the sole male, Deeley,skilfully manages the most difficult of the three roles. The result is a presentation which reaches the highest standards of performance, a rare treat for the audience.   

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In a room apparently far from anywhere, there are three people: Deeley, his wife, Kate, and Kate’s old friend, Anna. They drink coffee and they talk of old times – times of youthful excitement and poverty in London, of eating sandwiches in Green Park and spending evenings at the theatre or in pubs filled with writers and artists. Their sentences are mostly short and there are many pauses — this is, after all, Pinter.

Taking their recollections at face value doesn’t quite work: there are too many inconsistencies. Are their recollections honest, but faulty? Are they cooperatively but imperfectly constructing a fictional shared past? Do the two women represent different sides of the same personality? Are Deeley and Anna engaged in some sort of battle for Kate’s soul?

Many interpretations of Harold Pinter’s play about memory and dominance are possible. What stands out in the Globe’s production, directed by Lisa Warrington, is the sheer quality of the performances. All three characters exhibit distinctive kinds of confidence. Ross Johnston’s Deeley displays an encroaching, presumptive confidence: Terry MacTavish’s Anna is sophisticated and mysterious, and Vivienne Laube’s Kate appears passive and self contained but has a surprising inner strength.

With these superb, beautifully nuanced performances, enhanced by perfect timing and mood changes, this is seriously good drama. Last night, the Globe was full of people – some old enough to remember the play’s Fortune production in the 1970s which also featured Johnston and MacTavish, and many young enough to be just learning to appreciate Pinter – who had wisely chosen to attend. 

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