by John Quinn

Article: 9600; Posted: April 19, 2015 at 4:30 p.m.

“Two Plays by Harold Pinter (with drinking in between).” The evening cannot be described much more simply than that. If there were a tad less consumed at intermission of the Abreact’s 14th season closer, it’s only that the first offering of the evening, ”One For the Road” is quite the shocker. Pinter’s 1983 provocative examination of the tools of a totalitarian society is more likely to spark an exchange of ideas than an exchange of toasts.

A broken, tortured political dissident is hauled before the director of intelligence in some authoritarian sink-hole. Whatever the setting, intellectualism seems to be a high crime against the State, and Nicholas (Sergio Mautone) is prepared to stop at nothing in his fight against the unorthodox – in this case, Victor (Charles Reynolds).

What is most disturbing in “One for the Road” is not the manipulative advantage that power gives authority, but how casually, almost gleefully, it’s employed. Mautone keeps his delivery largely soft-spoken; the fist in the velvet glove. Reynold’s performance elicits emotion through its physical, rather than oral, aspect. It is on this level that John Jakary, director, achieves an eerie balance between unequal characters.

After drinking in between, the evening concludes with Pinter’s “The Dwarfs,” a play adapted from a novel published in 1992. “The Dwarfs” has undergone further editing by director John Jakary for this production script. It’s more a “Pinteresque” play than the first–if we may introduce that term–although the playwright abhorred it. While Pinter’s works are in-your-face confrontational, “The Dwarfs” turns from the raw destruction of the body to the more deadly murder of the soul.

Three pals—Len (Sean McGettigan), Mark (Josh Campos) and Nicholas (Sergio Mautone)–stay on the verge of discovering that “breaking up is hard to do.” Relationships evolve; some survive change, others fail. “The Dwarfs” is memorable for its stunningly evocative poetry, something totally unexpected given this fundamental plot. The trick is delivering the necessary emotional context to their audience without making the medium sound like poetry. Each of the trio elegantly handles that balance.

The audience might never have needed that “drinking inbetween” to recognize the basic sincerity in the performances. Of course, it didn’t hurt.

SHOW DETAILS:
Two Plays by Harold Pinter (with drinking in between)
The Abreact
1301 West Lafayette, Detroit
April 17-May 9, 2015; Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday matinee on May 3 at 4:00 p.m.
Price: by donation; please give what you can
313-454-1542 or 313-918-5283
www.theabreact.com