With their latest show, The Ensemble theatre welcomes you to the Harold Pinter experience. This experience is odd, skewered, out of kilter, humorous in a strange way, and we don’t know how things are going to play out.
THE LOVER’S opening scene is exquisite; Richard wearing a suit and with suitcase in hand is going out the door and he and his wife Sarah have a very matter of fact conversation as to whether her lover was joining her in the afternoon. Very odd. Very genteel and British?
And very unbelievable! We are thinking what exactly is going on? Is this for real? Why are they both being so casual, so off-hand, so open and brazen about an extra marital affair?
With THE DUMB WAITER, Pinter has us again off-guard, wondering what is happening. On stage we see two nondescript middle aged men in a very bland basement room
Ben is lying on his mattress reading the newspaper whilst Gus Is pacing the room. In the middle of the room, there is a dumb waiter. There is talk that they are hit men and they are waiting to receive advice on their next assignments. They get these fancy menus that come down the dumb waiter in the middle of the room. Gus constantly goes to the loo and the flushing sound indicates that the toilet isn’t working properly. Another disorientating sound is the loud sounds of the dumb waiter pulley going up and down. Again we wonder what is real and what is not. Are these guys really hitmen? Are they friends or do they just work together?!
The guys don’t look like they could organise a chook raffle in a pub, let alone be assassins. Then menu selections are sent down in notes via a dumb waiter. The guys Ben and Gus don’t get it. What’s all the fancy food about? They only have crisps to it..And then there’s the sound of the pulley of the dumb waiter as it heaves up and down. Again we are disoriented. Again we, like the two characters, are asking, what exactly is going on?
Long time Harold Pinter devotee directs both plays with a sure touch. The cast are superb. With THE LOVER it is like Nicole Da Silva and Gareth Davies are performing an intricate, flamboyant dance wth plenty of back and forth movements, and asking each other a lot of questions. With THE DUMB WAITER, there is a much more confused dance.
Kilmurry’s creative team do great work: set and costume designer Simon Romaniuk, lighting designer Matt Cox, composer and sound designer Daryl Wallis.
Special mention needs to go to Rmaniuk’s work. Her design for the first play THE LOVER was a well laid out, very comfortable, middle class living room of the sixties period. During the interval two stagehands worked methodically to transform the set to a dingy, claustrophobic basement. Both sets were finely detailed, This concept and transformation was brilliantly done.
This Harold Pinter double bill is playing the Ensemble until the 7th June 2025.
