Monday, September 21, 2009
Kristina Watt as Kate (left) and Sophie Goulet as Anna, in Third Wall Theatre's
Old Times. (photos by Richard Ellis)
How illusory are memories? How significant are the spaces between what we recall with clarity, what we vaguely recollect, and what we wholly invent?
Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter often obscured his dramas within those spaces, challenging audiences to urgently ponder what is real, which characters are to be trusted, and what might happen next.
Artistic associate James Richardson of Third Wall Theatre is happy to tap into this intrigue by directing a season-opening production of Pinter's
Old Times at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre beginning Tuesday, September 22.
“The play gripped me when I first read it,” explained Richardson. “I have not been able to put it down. I like figuring these kind of stories—not so much a whodunit but a whahappened?
A huge fan of Pinter, Richardson chose
Old Times because it is at once one of the playwright's most accessible works yet rich with layers of mystery.
“[Pinter] gives so many clues in the text but you have to piece it together like a jigsaw puzzle,” Richardson said. “I also love the intensity of it all. How else can I say it—Pinter is juicy!”
Old Times features three 40-something characters—the married couple Deely and Kate and a visitor named Anna—who compete for one another's attention with conflicting versions of their shared pasts.
To deliver the required subtlety, Richardson has assembled an accomplished cast.
Sophie Goulet, playing Anna, is an Ottawa native who “made it big on the Canadian theatre scene and is returning for her first local production,” said Richardson. Richard Gelinas, playing Deeley, received a Rideau Award nomination for his work in the previous Third Wall Pinter production,
Betrayal, while Kristina Watt, who plays Kate, is a Rideau Award winner.
Richardson would like to continue to stage Pinter with Third Wall but is waiting to see how Ottawa audiences respond to
Old Times.
In just nine years, Third Wall has become a major element on the Ottawa theatre scene. Taking chances has always been part of the formula.
“Never giving up, always striving for being better, and never settling for adequate,” said Richardson of the Third Wall approach. "Failing is acceptable, but not if you are only going for adequate—that word does not exist in my lexicon.“
Failure, too, is really only a highly subjective judgment based on memories that may or may not exist. As Pinter himself once said, “The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.”
Goulet, Watt, and Richard Gelinas as Deely.
