Rave review for THE COLLECTION

Spike Gillespie with The Austinist wrote a lovely review of our current production, THE COLLECTION by Harld Pinter.

The Collection, a play written by Harold Pinter and currently showing at Hyde Park Theatre, is purposefully ambiguous and, at times, flat out intentionally confusing. That said, the truly puzzling thing about the performance, which is directed by (and also features) Austin’s own gift-to-the-stage, Ken Webster, is this: In this town where the standing ovation is de rigeur, to the point that a gaggle of pre-schoolers toddling across the street can merit wild vertical applause, Webster and company did not receive a sustained, leap-to-their feet round of deafening clapping from the near full house in attendance last Friday night.

Which is not to say the crowd was unappreciative. Oh no. From the laughter that punctuated the evening at all the right moments, it was clear folks got what was going on— as much as one could get it. Maybe, then, everyone was just stunned into ass-stuck-in-seat mode at the end. Or perhaps they stayed down in hopes that the cast would come back out and run through the entire 73 minutes a second time. That would’ve been just fine.

Webster has impeccable taste when it comes to selecting plays. That said, more often than not he veers toward the incredibly dark and, oftentimes, violent. With The Collection, though, he has selected a piece that, while it certainly has enough dark emotional elements, doesn’t step into the realm of physical violation visited upon one character by another.

Instead, as we figure out eventually, James (Webster) is led to believe that Bill (Joey Hood) has committed adultery with his wife, Stella (Kelsey Kling). Toss into this mix the fourth character in the play, Harry (Ian Manners), who is some sort of mentor (or is that master?) of Bill—his decades younger “roommate—” and there’s plenty to keep the show moving right along.

And yet, though it does move, at the same time The Collection simultaneously has the pacing of an episode of Mad Men, which is to say Pinter does not rush the plot. The dialogue, also like Mad Men, is often succinct, and Pinter’s trademark pauses are more than a little pregnant. Thus when James confronts Bill, as he does more than once, often it is his long silences (accompanied by Webster’s excellent facial expressions) that get across his point. Think of Javier Bardem’s chilling quiet moments in No Country for Old Men.

When language is employed in The Collection, it is employed precisely and spot on. Here we have four people all working with more or less the same story and yet this same story is told, viewed, dissected, confirmed and denied multiple times and through widely varying perspectives. A pleasant confusion ensues for the audience as we are challenged to examine our own thoughts and feelings on infidelity, what constitutes “truth,” and whom we ultimately choose to believe.

Webster couldn’t give a bad performance even if Javier Bardem was directing him to do so with the sawed off barrel of a shotgun. Ian Manners, who happens to also be a UT Professor, perfectly inhabits the character of stodgy old Englishman, ever demanding in his silk dressing gown. Kelsey Kling is excellent as a woman who is either seeking to set things straight via true confession or hoping to stir shit up via the opposite—we might never know. But it is Joey Hood here who deserves the most kudos. No stranger to the HPT stage, he’s done strong turns in Killer Joe and Bombs in Your Mouth. But this is his most shining moment to date as a slums-to-manor bad boy, toying with those around him in a slow cat-dangles-mouse ritual. Put them all together on a set designed by design genius Paul Davis and, to understate the matter, there’s not a thing to complain about in The Collection.

The Collection runs through October 10th at Hyde Park Theatre.