Old Times
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (September 2007) |
 |
This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations. |
Old Times is a play by the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in London on June 1, 1971. It starred Colin Blakely, Dorothy Tutin, and Vivien Merchant, and was directed by Peter Hall. The play was dedicated to Hall to celebrate his 40th birthday.
Peter Hall also directed the Broadway première, which opened at the Billy Rose Theater in New York on November 16, 1971, starring Robert Shaw, Rosemary Harris and Mary Ure; and a year later, the German language premiére of the play at the Burgtheater in Vienna, with Maximilian Schell, Erika Pluhar and Anna-Marie Duringer. In February 2007 Hall returned again to the play directing a new production with his Theatre Royal, Bath company.
Contents |
[edit] Quotations
- “If you have only one of something you can't say it's the best of anything.”
- ”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”
- ”I was interested once in the arts, but I can't remember now which ones they were.”
- ”You have a wonderful casserole…I mean wife.”
[edit] List of characters
- Deeley
- Kate
- Anna
[edit] Themes
- “One way of looking at speech is to say it is a stratagem to cover nakedness.”
- “What goes on in my plays is realistic, but what I’m doing is not realism.”
- “The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.”
- “A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”
Cecily in The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde::
- "Memory usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened.”
[edit] Selected production history
[edit] Some recent productions
- 1985 Theatr Clwyd revival by Lindy Davies, at the Emlyn Williams Studio in May, transferred to Wyndham's Theatre, London, starring Leigh Lawson, Harriet Walter and Julie Christie; with a darkly imposing brick back-drop designed by Julian McGowan.
- 2004 Donmar Warehouse, London: directed by Roger Michell, with Jeremy Northam, Gina McKee and Helen McCrory; played against an abstract mirrored set design by William Dudley
- 2005 The Wharf, Sydney: directed by Lindy Davies and starring Elizabeth Alexander as Kate, Angela Punch McGregor as Anna and William Zappa as Deeley.
- 2007 UK tour: directed by Peter Hall, starring Neil Pearson as Deeley, Janie Dee as Kate and Susannah Harker as Anna; with a timbered setting designed by Lucy Hall [1]
- 2007 Neptune Theatre (Halifax), Canada: directed by Brian Richmond and starring Ruth Madoc-Jones, Dan Lett and Lenore Zann.
- 2008 Harvard University, Adams Pool Theater
- 2008 New York University, College of Arts and Science Theater
- 2008 Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Marwick-Boyd Little Theater
[edit] References
- Billington, Michael. Harold Pinter. Rev. and enl. ed. of The Life and Work of Harold Pinter. 1996; London: Faber and Faber, 2007. ISBN 978-0-571-23476-9 (13).
- Naismith, Bill. Harold Pinter. Faber Critical Guides. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-571-19781-7.
- Rockley, John. "Neil Pearson Drops in for a Morning Coffee!" BBC Radio Gloucestershire 7 Mar. 2007. [Interview with actor Neil Pearson about performing in Old Times at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, England.]
|
|||||
