Crystal Theatre to show double header

The Montana Repertory Theatre will present two of Harold Pinter’s one-act plays this Sunday at the Crystal Theatre with all the gloom, ambiguity and confusion that have come to symbolize the famous Nobel Prize-winning writer.

The first play, “The Dumb Waiter,” which Pinter wrote in 1957, is a single scene in which two hit men sit in a room and await their next order. With little context, the play takes audiences on a physiological ride through human control and power.

According to “The Dumb Waiter” director, Ron Fitzgerald, the play basically rests on when a life is controlled by someone else’s and when an individual slowly leaves reality.

For the first week, Fitzgerald ran rehearsals in the basement of actor Tyler Neilson’s house.

“It was hilarious. There’s literally a coal chute in the corner and it’s freezing. We are using some of the dust from Tyler’s basement and using it on the stage when we perform. We call it our good luck dust,” Fitgerald said.

Fitzgerald doesn’t consider himself a director, however. He currently splits his time between Missoula and Los Angeles where he writes for the show Weeds. He was approached for the position of director for the play.

“I basically said, ‘Yeah, I’d be into that,’” Fitzgerald said. “We have two kick-ass actors that are both really experienced and talented. I try not to get in their way.”

Fitzgerald also said that since the play only has two cast members, sitting down and collaborating is easier.

The second Pinter play, “Ashes to Ashes,” was written near the end of Pinter’s career in the late ‘90s. The simple context of the play is that of an older English couple sitting in their living room by themselves talking about their past. After certain revelations, the production examines the human psyche and spirit after an individual realizes he has been misled.

“It’s purely a metaphysical play,” said Greg Johnson, director of “Ashes to Ashes.”

Johnson called Pinter one of the most famous playwrights of the 20th century.

“Pinter opened a door to a new style of theater. Before him, plays were just written on surface level. Pinter writes about what goes on underneath the surface of lives revealing much darker themes,” Johnson said.

Actress Salina Chatlain, who also serves as the assistant to the artistic director at the Montana Repertory Theatre, said the audience will definitely leave with a lot of questions that they must answer for themselves.

“Honestly, I still have a lot of questions,” Chatlain said. “Pinter is the sort of thing you have to come to and then make your mind up on.”

Pinter, a renowned playwright, has written 29 stage plays during his 40–year career. He also managed to write dozens of screenplays, essays, lectures and a novel.

His plays were often characterized by metaphysical human thought and irony. Pinter famously stated in his 2005 Nobel Lecture, “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”

“The Dumb Waiter” and “Ashes to Ashes” will be showing back-to-back Oct. 14 to 18 and 21 to 25 at 8 p.m.

kelsey.bernius@umontana.edu