The Lover and The Collection by Harold Pinter

(potent pause) PRODUCTIONS is a small boutique theatre company established in 2001 and this year is celebrating 25 years! Focused on presenting lost, provocative, entertaining and thought-provoking theatre.

As (potent pause) PRODUCTIONS is well known as the Pinter performing professionals, we thought it fitting to present two of his well-known one act plays of similar themes. 

A double bill of Harold Pinter’s ‘The Lover’ and ‘The Collection’ to be performed at The Meteor theatre, Hamilton, October 23 and 24, and TAPAC theatre, Western Springs, Auckland, November 3-8.

The Double Bill…

The Lover themes explore the performance of marital roles, the necessity of imagination, and the dimming of lines between reality and simulation.

The Collection explores the subjectivity of truth, the variability of memory, and the "menace" of unanswered questions.

Past (potent pause) PRODUCTIONS highlights include Decadence, Miss Julie, Blue /Orange, The Homecoming, Old Times, The Chairs (English & French) and The Pitman Painters.

Cast & Crew include: 

Paul Gittins, Director: (Snowflake, Prima Facie, Blue /Orange) 

Michael Lawrence, Actor: (The Dumb Waiter, The Homecoming, Snowflake AK, NZ, Simpatico, Sexual Perversity in Chicago & The Public Eye, London, UK) 

Edward Newborn, Actor: (Pitmen Painters, Krapps Last Tape, AK, NZ, Gaslight, Therese Raquin, London, UK)

Sarah Sommerville, Actor: (Finding Murdoch, Jungle Fury, Go Girls) 

Rachelle Duncan, Actor: (Angels in America, The Hothouse)

John Parker (TBC), Design: Prima Facie, Creditors, The Homecoming, Blue/ Orange

Nik Janiurek, Lighting: The Pitmen Painters, The Hothouse

More cast and crew TBC…

As funding is always difficult and in these particular times, we are reaching out via this platform hoping to raise the money to help pay for the following…

A part payment /fee to each member of the team.

Part payment towards the rights

Part payment towards both venues

And towards rehearsal space hireage and web design and creative

Over and above that, donating towards The Lover & The Collection is aiding our future continuance and reaching out to new donors and theatregoers.

A celebration of 25 years of (potent pause) PRODUCTIONS theatre productions.

With a double bill of Harold Pinter’s ‘The Lover’ and ‘The Collection’ to be performed at The Meteor theatre, Hamilton, October 23 and 24, and TAPAC theatre, Western Springs, Auckland, November 3-8.

'The Lover' is about a married couple who live a private kind of life in the middle of somewhere or other. They might be comfortably off financially, but their sex life seems to be deteriorating and they decide to engage in the rituals of a traditional, "Hello darling, I'm home", kind of marriage. Shockingly liberal, you might say, even for the 'swinging 60s'. But, as you'd expect from a Pinter play, there's rather more to it and as we get to know the couple better and their double existence, their refined deception, both are prisoners of the repetitive mechanisms of a role-playing game. This play still preserves its timely relevance and uncontainable strength with an almost Pirandellian piquancy.

'The Collection' is on the same sort of lines, though the sexual element here focuses on bisexuality, trust and jealousy. Bill is a young fashion designer who lives with his older partner, Harry. One day a strange man, Jimmy, phones at 4 am to speak to Bill.Then he comes round to Harry's house unannounced, helps himself to some vodka and a grape or two, and accuses Bill of having slept with his wife Stella, in a hotel while on business in Leeds. Bill at first denies the accusations, but the matter is never clarified or resolved satisfactorily in spite of Stella's denial. The Collection was first written and presented as a TV play in 1961 and then produced on stage by the RSC in London. The Financial times chronicled the play as “an under praised little masterpiece”.

Harold Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1964), Betrayal, (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works. He was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.

Critics say…

Nicholas de Jongh for THE EVENING STANDARD says, "Harold Pinter has never offered us more illuminating, sexually related pleasure than in these two exquisite one-acters." Michael Billington for THE GUARDIAN says, “There is a lot of comedy here” Benedict Nightingale for THE TIMES says, “Two fascinating, funny, elusive one-acters.”

Bringing alternative and craft fully scripted plays to our shores is part of the continued journey of (potent pause) PRODUCTIONS. We have always strived to present plays which allow debate to occur, opinions to flow and punches to be thrown! to push individuals, to pass the word on…

In the past we have engaged with many patrons both in Auckland, NZ  & London, UK, sharing our likes of Mr Pinter plays.

Accessibility to other genres, writing, presentation, all are ways of hopefully attracting people to theatre and the arts.