Production Archive

Pinter's play was first produced in London in 1971 and has been performed many times and in many countries since. Indeed, many of Pinter’s plays are being staged around the world at the present time as a new generation of theatregoers encounters the intriguing complexities of his characters and the lives they live (or may not have lived) in his many works. Old Times is one such play that lingers in the memory long after the performance has ended. The three characters, two women, Kate and Anna, and one man, Deeley, meet for dinner at the home of Kate and Deeley. Anna is (may be?) an old friend of Kate and the evening is spent reminiscing about the shared pasts of Kate and Anna, Kate and Deeley. At least, that is what the evening appears to be. The reality is darker, as is always the case with Pinter, a struggle for sexual dominance, for power, fought out via the sharing of memories that may or may not be true. As Anna says at one point, “There are some things one remembers even though they never happened. There are things I remember that may never have happened but as I recall them they take place.�