Two evocative one-act plays of Harold Pinter will be staged at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre as part of the Pinter at Pinter season to commemorate the tenth year of the Nobel Laureate’s death. The plays will be staged from October 25 through December 8.Harold Pinter’s “The “Landscape” and “A Kind of Alaska”, both directed by Jamie Lloyd, explore the themes of loneliness, isolation and the unpredictable mists of time.Landscape is hailed as a minimalist masterpiece by Pinter. A one-act play; it was first broadcast on radio in 1968 and first performed on stage in 1969. The play brings to fore the difficulties of communication two people face in a marriage. This can be seen when the two characters appearing to be talking to each other don’t seem to hear what the other is saying. The dialogue is like two separate monologues. To juxtapose similar predicaments, Landscape is often studied, read, and performed alongside Silence, a one-act play that was published soon after Landscape. Both these plays see Pinter change his narrative style, with strong echoes of Samuel Beckett’s work.Nothing happens in the play. Its action is brought to a halt putting more attention to the substance of the dialogues and monologues that take place. They become the actors of the play in a way. As one critic had put it "nothing happens but much is explored".“A Kind of Alaska” was written in 1982. This one act play is about Deborah, a middle-aged woman who has been in a comatose state for thirty years as a result of suffering from "sleepy sickness." One fine day awakes from her slumber, but with a mind of a sixteen-year-old. She must confront the realities of the world and people around her. Her sister Pauline and Pauline's husband, Hornby, who has also been Deborah's devoted doctor over these thirty years, and who probably may have fallen in love with her, gently try to bring back Deborah to her current reality. As she reawakens to a changed world, she takes all the shocking revelations in graceful stride.The play ends with the ironic observation about Pauline and Hornby. Pinter's idea for the play was inspired by neurologist Oliver Sack’s book “Awakenings.” The play comes with the message that, sometimes being oblivious to reality is the best way to deal with it.The series opens on October 25, 2018 and runs through December 8, 2018 at The Harold Pinter Theatre, Panton St, London SW1Y 4DN, UKFor details, visit https://www.atgtickets.com/venues/harold-pinter-theatre/http://www.blouinartinfo.com Founder: Louise Blouin
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