Pinter Shorts – A Season of Harold Pinter Short Plays

Carving in Ice Theatre is proud to present Pinter Shorts: A Season of Harold Pinter Short Plays, directed by Gaye Poole.

“Pinter has always been my hero.” – David Mamet

“No modern British playwright has been more controversial, more influential, or more published.” – John Lahr

That’s All (1964)
Mrs A and Mrs B chatter about a third party who used to come around on Wednesdays, but changed to Thursdays. This sketch about the impact of altering the smallest of weekly routines treats us to Pinter’s mastery of conversational inconsequentialities.

Actors: Kendra Boyle & Mandy Faulkner

Umbrellas (1960)
Imagine what life would be like if you owned one or more umbrellas.
Actors: Conor Maxwell & David Simes

Precisely (1983)
Two powerful businessmen argue about the exact figure. Pinter wrote Precisely for a theatrical evening in late 1983 for the Peace Movement.

Actors: Jack Knowles & James Smith

Mountain Language (1988)
Without specifying place or political context, Mountain Language begins with women waiting outside a prison to see their husbands and family. The outlawing of ‘mountain language’ in favour of the language of the ‘capital’ stands as a metaphor for the treatment of dissidents everywhere.

On display is Pinter’s trademark combination of terrorising through verbal power and facility with the rhetoric of the everyday.

Actors: Missy Mooney, Julianne Boyle, Clive Lamdin, David Simes, Liam Hinton, Richard Homan, James Smith and Tycho Smith, with Kendra Boyle, Mandy Faulkner, Christina Wilson.

Night (1969)
A married couple take a poetic, intense and satisfying meander down memory lane. Night is wistful and comic.

Actors: Julianne Boyle & Phil Dalziel

That’s Your Trouble (1964)
Two men in a park argue about whether another man carrying a sandwich board has a headache or a back or leg ache.

Actors: Liam Hinton & Jack Knowles

Party Time (1991)
The streets are blockaded outside Gavin’s upmarket flat, the result of a military occupation. Inside Gavin hosts a party where the machinations between the guests are as potent and suffocating as any wider social upheaval.

Actors: Conor Maxwell, David Lumsden, Kendra Boyle, Mandy Faulkner, Phil Dalziel, Richard Homan, Missy Mooney, Christina Wilson, Tycho Smith and Jack Knowles.