Jenny Young, Christopher Morris and Anita Majumdar in Old Times | Photo by Dahlia Katz
Ah, Pinter… I walked out into the summer night, after seeing Soulpepper’s production of Old Times, with my brow properly furrowed. I’m still not sure how I feel about Harold Pinter. I mean, he was always up to something and it’s consistently interesting—to me, anyway. You come out of a Pinter joint feeling very sophisticated, scratching your head and having polite, adult conversations about theme, character and, if you’re of the fastidious sort, what actually happened—plot is, I feel, a misleading term here.
You can read reviews, go online and engage with the discourse. I’ve done it. I’ve read theories about what actually happened and what it all means. Now, just like the work of David Lynch, I think it’s silly to try to solve Pinter. You wrestle with him for as long as you can stand—by yourself or with others—and then you move on with your life. What you take away from him is entirely up to you, but Pinter and a good production will provide ample traction. I certainly hope you don’t expect me to tell you what it all means, but I can share some clusters of significant guck lodged in my psyche.
To start, let me tell you how much I love the aesthetic of director Peter Pasyk’s staging. At first, I thought Snezana Pesic’s set didn’t feel properly lived-in as the country home the characters keep calling it. The bare beige walls, the prim twin chaises longues, the tasteful armchair and lamp nestled in between, the neat serving carts off to the side—this is a canvas, not a home. The huge picture window with its view of a dusk sky is eerie and gorgeous. The way Imogen Wilson’s lighting catches in the sheer curtain just so is obsessive in a way that thrills me.
Even as the first scene opens on Deeley (Christopher Morris), Kate (Anita Majumdar) and Anna (Jenny Young), we know verisimilitude is not the intent here. Pesic has dressed the enigmatic three up in elegant, stylish attire that suits these characters a little too well. It is all distinctly performative. Anna is right there, staring blankly out at the ominous sky as Deeley and Kate discuss her upcoming arrival. She becomes part of the scene and their conversation as if she were always there…and, clearly, she was—the past very much present.
The stilted rhythm of their dialogue aside, when Anna first tells her husband Deeley about her memories of Anna, they seem credible, if a little weird. Anna’s penchant for stealing her underwear is, for example, an intriguing quirk and, we assume, a solid remembrance. As the evening progresses, it becomes increasingly hard to define her place in, not just Anna’s life, but Deeley’s as well. As their conversation evolves, they offer each other conflicting accounts of their old times. Specific details echo and mutate until the whole situation becomes a grotesque amalgam of their neuroses.
An aspect of the play I find especially intriguing and uncomfortably truthful is the unreliability of memory. Do these people believe the stories they are telling? How consciously are they manipulating their recollections to suit their current psychological needs? Their dynamic is most compelling when their carefully maintained cool is threatened, when a mask slips and they lash out possessively.
The production did try my patience for a while though. Those trademark Pinter pauses are fully indulged, though the intended tension often falters in stilted and arch delivery. I wonder if some allowances could be made here for ease of conversation, for more hints of warmth and naturalism to throw the dark strangeness into more resonant relief. Pasyk and his cast are very committed to the facade, but that only really pays off quite late in the game.
It helps enormously that Majumdar, Morris and Young have significant drawing power. There are moments of awkward humour that really charmed me. Deeley and Anna clumsily one-upping each other as they serenade Kate—deliciously embarrassing. The way Kate is flummoxed by the coffee and brandy she’s holding after two separate drinks have been prepared within minutes of each other—quietly hilarious.
The second scene is considerably richer, satisfying our attention which is primed and anxious for some nuance. There is a moment, during one of Anna’s icky moments of maternal hovering over her, when Kate fixates on Anna’s hand suddenly on her ankle. I live for moments like this—where I’m transfixed and wondering: what is going on here?
Coming back to Lynch, the jarring final moment here felt very aligned with his sensibility. Wilson’s lighting and Jacob Lin 林鴻恩’s sound design conspire to present a chilling flash portrait of discontent. It’s hard to understand precisely what is going on here, but we know instinctively that these people are tormented by their middle class malaise. Their sick little game, frustratingly allusive in its rules, makes clear, at least, the motivating force.
Old Times
August 6 to September 7, 2025
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
(50 Tank House Lane)
75 minutes (no intermission)
Christopher Morris and Anita Majumdar in Old Times | Photo by Dahlia Katz