Pinter’s Old Times for Adelaide

Pinter’s Old Times for Adelaide

Busy completing his PhD on Shakespeare's actor Richard Burbage, Cate Blanchett’s former acting teacher Tony Knight is moving his focus for the moment; from Shakespeare to a very different acting style. He is to co-produce and direct an April production of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter’s tense drama, Old Times. Lesley Reed reports.

Tony Knight was Head of Acting for Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art for twenty years. During that time he was Director and teacher/ coach to Hollywood stars who, in addition to Cate Blanchett include Miranda Otto, Jacqueline MacKenzie, Jeremy Sims, Sam Worthington, Essie Davis, Alex O’Loughlin, Anna Torv, Ryan Corr and Sarah Snook.

Knight originally studied at the Drama Centre in London and together with teaching, has been a director of productions including Assassins, Angels in America, Guys and Dolls, Othello and many more productions in Australia and overseas. He is now based in Adelaide while he does a PhD and is teaching some of the city’s most talented actors.  

Three performers who recently undertook Advanced Acting workshop programs under Tony’s expert tuition are now to be directed by him in Harold Pinter’s drama about desire and blurred realities, Old Times, produced by Mystique Productions & Tony Knight-Acting. The cast includes Rachael Wegener, Marc Clement and Charlotte Rose.

“They have a wealth of University training, professional experience on stage, film and television and a have great working relationship between them,” said Tony Knight. “Rachael Wegener was recently in Deadline Gallipoli and Changed Forever and includes McCleod’s Daughters amongst her TV credits. Her experience in film, TV and stage is both in Australia and Canada. Marc Clement has performed in many local theatre productions, including as Alfie in Matt Byrne Media’s play of the same name. Marc is waiting on the 2016 release of the South Australian film Ambergris in which he co-stars. Charlotte Rose’s feature film credits include the US and Australian films Darkness Falls, Blurred, Let me Not, Moloch, Tempe Tip, Disappearance and The King is Dead. Her Television credits include Blue Heelers, Ponderosa, Prank Patrol and ANZAC Girls. Her most recent theatre performances include Adelaide Festival show Blackout and Adelaide Fringe show The Umbrella Plays.”

The list of credits for the cast of Old Times is actually much longer than the above, which augurs well for these actors bringing to life the fast and witty, tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the English class system that is Pinter’s Old Times. The play is haunting and visceral, yet peppered with comedic moments. It also reflects on old times and contains some songs from the Thirties and Fifties, including ‘The Way You Look Tonight’, ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, ‘Blue Moon’ and ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’.

“The cast came together from the Acting classes that Rachael and I organised last year,” said Tony Knight when I asked him about this production of Old Times. “It is from these acting classes that this production grew, and it is from these acting classes that other subsequent productions will come. This current production is a concentrated and committed step towards establishing a new professional theatre company in Adelaide – for Adelaide actors. Rachael Wegener is my business partner and co-producer on Old Times, as well as for the acting classes we are currently holding. Rachael is extraordinary – a powerhouse of creative energy. She has an enormous wealth of experience, nationally and internationally. When I moved to Adelaide in July last year, primarily to do my PhD, Rachael of course got in touch. It was Rachael’s idea to start up the acting classes, and then from that we kind of naturally came to the decision to try and produce plays, and form a new professional company in Adelaide for Adelaide actors and theatre artists. That is one of our primary goals. Adelaide is a wonderful, sophisticated city.”

When I asked why the first play for this new professional company was to be Old Times, Knight said, “I have always been attracted to and thrilled by the plays by Harold Pinter; they are absolutely unique to themselves and brilliant in their range of subject matter, characters, language and dynamic expression.  When Rachael Wegener and I started to formulate the idea of starting up a new company in Adelaide we knew that in order for us to make a successful start we needed to do a play by an established author that would immediately attract interest and an audience. Like myself, many people love the work of Harold Pinter, so we knew we would be able to attract attention by the very fact we were producing a Pinter play. Furthermore, Old Times was a play that whilst known about, was not one that had been seen in Adelaide, let alone Australia, for many years.”

Old Times was first produced in London in 1971,” said Tony Knight. “The play deals with the visit of an old friend, Anna, to the home of married couple Katy and Deeley. Anna and Katy were best friends years ago when they were young women starting out on their professional careers.  Through the course of the evening old secrets are laid bare – but who is actually telling the truth? The story gets even further complicated when it is revealed that Anna and Deeley also knew each other in a past life. At the centre of all this lies a mystery, a dark and sinister secret that is revealed only at the last minute.”

As with most of Pinter’s work there is a power struggle at play. “It’s one that involves the question as to who controls memory,” said Knight when I asked him for his personal thoughts about the play. “No two people who have shared a particular experience will relate that experience in exactly the same way. Subsequently, the events of the past are filtered by current individual desires, to the extent that, to quote Pinter, ‘The past is what you remember, imagine what you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember’. As for what is actually the truth Pinter stated, ‘A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false’. Who is actually telling the truth; or are they all telling a truth but from different perspectives; or is there something more sinister and complex at play? In a number of ways, it is up to individual members of the audience to come up with their own conclusion. The delightful ambiguity of the play, as well as its wit and humour, is something that hopefully will be the subject of post-show discussion by members of the audience.”

Knight went on to say, “On a professional level, the play comes at the time when Pinter shifted his focus from his earlier works, which have collectively been titled ‘comedy of menace’, to plays that were deeply concerned with ‘memory’. Old Times is a short play in two acts (we are not taking an interval) and is both a ‘memory’ play and a brilliant ‘comedy of menace’. It is, at times, extremely funny, absurd, ridiculous and delightfully bizarre, as each character jostles for dominance in regard to shared memories and current relationship status. Furthermore, it seems that Pinter is sending up a particular type of English ‘comedy of manners’, exemplified by Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde; the characters’ very English nature, attitude, and language are dazzling in their wit and dynamic expression.”

It seems Old Times came at a particular point in Pinter’s writing, marking a transition in both his personal and professional life. “The play deals with personal relationships, between old friends as well as husband and wife,” said Knight. “There is a sense of betrayal of trust as well as jealousy, envy and remorse as old wounds are exposed and scores settled.  Pinter never fully explained what Old Times was about, encouraging different interpretations of the characters and the dramatic action of the play. Whilst not specific, nonetheless, in hindsight, it is possible that in writing the play, Pinter was influenced by the breakdown in his marriage to Vivian Merchant, and his clandestine affairs with other women at this time.”

Old Times is a play that has received many plaudits. Actor Clive Owen, for example, has described it as “one of the greatest plays written in the last one hundred years”. Derek Mahon, of The Listener said it is a play “…fleshed with haunting language, with a complex intelligence that confirms, once again, the quality and distinction of Pinter’s talent.”

Under the guiding hand of former NIDA Head of Acting Tony Knight and co-producer Rachael Wegener, Pinter’s Old Times will surely be the first of many high quality professional productions by new company Mystique Productions. Don’t miss it, Adelaide audiences.

OLD TIMES

By Harold Pinter

Presented by Mystique Productions & Tony Knight-Acting

WHERE: Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre

WHEN: April 6-8 at 7.30 pm; April 9 at 3 pm and 7pm.

85 minutes, no interval.

BOOKINGS:

http://www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/shows/old-times/or at BASS direct http://www.bass.net.au/events/old-times.aspx

Note for Adelaide actors: Email mystiqueproductionsptyltd@gmail.com or call 0457581449 for information about Tony Knight’s upcoming acting programs.

Photos: (top 3) cast members Rachael Wegener (dark hair), Charlotte Rose, and Marc Clement - by Gregg Adams of IMAGESTIX and (lower) Tony Knight with Rachael Wegener - by Mark Heuer Copyright Mystique Productions and Tony Knight- Acting.

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.