Present Imperfect: A Gallery of Short Works by Harold Pinter

July 17-26, 2009, Midway Studios
Directed by Caitlin Lowans and Brendan Shea
photos by Daniel J. van Ackere

With Kate Bailey, Lisa Caron Driscoll, Carlos M. Harris, Janelle Day Mills, Adam Sanders, and Brian Sergent

Set and Lighting Designers: Ian and Peter Agoos; Costume Designer: Sylvie Agudelo; Composer/Sound Designer: Lou Cohen; Props Designer: Cara Pacifico; Stage Manager: Vawnya Nichols;  Producer: Marc S. Miller; and Victoria Cyr, Kurt Cole Eidsvig, Silvia Graziano, Nick Thorkelson, Daniel J. van Ackere, and more. Thanks to www.freesound.org for the many sound samples used in this production.

This Fort Point Theatre Channel production honored the most important playwright of his generation and a 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature. Pinter's short works offer a less-familiar side of a playwright who is well known for haunting plays and tension-filled movie scripts. While maintaining his trademarks of conflict, complexity, and compassion, these six plays bring humor, even whimsy, into the equation and also convey the playwright's evolving concerns over the years.

A Kind of Alaska: A middle-aged woman wakes up after 30 years passed in a coma induced by sleeping sickness. In her mind she is still 16, and her attempts to  fathom the changed world into which she reemerges are poignant and emotionally charged and devastatingly brilliant theatre.

New World Order: The fear and uncertainty conveyed by this short piece powerfully remind us that the evils of the world will always try to conquer us if we don't heed the warnings. It offers a strong indictment of today's world in a manner that is straightforward and subtle, dark and darkly humorous.

Night: Two people sit at a table sipping coffee and talk about how they became lovers.

Request Stop: In this brief monologue, a woman rehearses her interactions with a hostile world.

Silence: A young girl's encounters with two male friends are told in three separate streams of thought, swimming with memories.

Victoria Station: A dispatcher tries to direct a strangely vacant driver to a waiting fare. But Car 274 is already carrying a mysterious passenger.