Pauses for effect

Memory can play tricks on us, as the Harold Pinter play Old Times shows. ELEANOR BLACK talks to the trio who have tackled the project.

Silence is as meaningful as words in this play, and even the words don't mean what they seem.

A married couple shares dinner with the wife's oldest friend, who they have not seen for many years. The reunion swiftly becomes a tussle for the wife's loyalty; memories are used as grenades to be lobbed across the lounge. Nothing is said, and it means everything.

If the actors taking on Harold Pinter's Old Times were less accomplished, the production could be a confusing disaster.

But Michael Lawrence (Deeley), Theresa Healey (his wife, Kate) and Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Anna) have got the tricky "Pinter pause" down pat and are relishing the "psychological choreography" that makes Pinter's work so challenging for actors and popular with theatre audiences.

"Everything counts. Every twitch," says Healey with evident pleasure. "The pauses become like speeches ... honestly, a head turn can mean something. Or it can distract."

Returning to acting after the birth of her first child, Healey - who played Carmen on Shortland Street for three years - is delighted to be working on such an intelligent play.

"I wanted to go back and do a play that was challenging. I'm doing it because I love it."

A central theme of the play is memory and the way three people who shared the same experience view it differently over time.

"They use their memories like weapons," says Ward-Lealand, who trained at Theatre Corporate with Lawrence 20 years ago.

Lawrence, who founded Potent Pause Productions in 1996 so he could stage Pinter's The Birthday Party, is a fan of the acerbic British playwright's work. Pinter based Old Times on a personal experience and wrote it in three days. He started out as an actor and his plays are known for being actor-friendly. As Lawrence puts it, they work.

"He's just a brilliant playwright," adds Healey. "His words are so incredible. It's all about rhythm and he understands dialogue like Shakespeare."

But there is a trick to staging his work: "You've got to be right in it from the start," says Lawrence. "It's such a deft little piece - if you're not in it, you're in trouble."

* Old Times, Maidment Studio, Wednesday - April 6.