Review: Fledgling company's 'Two by Pinter' are superb stagings of masterful work

PLAY REVIEW |

A woman awakens from a 29-year slumber to a perplexing world. A couple sits in their country home, intruded upon by disturbing dreams and memories.

You've just stepped into the oeuvre of the late British dramatist Harold Pinter, a master of verbal hesitation and innuendo, subtle shock and violent awe.

Many actors relish the resonance and risk of Pinter's plays which, writes critic Michael Billington, "appeal to one instinctually and emotionally, rather than purely cerebrally," as they demand and resist interpretation.

Among the Seattle devotees of Pinter are prime players Suzanne Bouchard, Frank Corrado and Kimberly King, who with astute director Victor Pappas are presenting "Two By Pinter," a pair of compressed, ruminative one-acts from the 1980s and '90s: "A Kind of Alaska," and "Ashes to Ashes."

Staged in close quarters in ACT Theatre's Bullitt Cabaret, this is the first venture of Shadow and Light Theatre, which is dedicated to the Pinter canon. One hopes more are in the offing.

The program opens with the most compelling "A Kind of Alaska," a tour de force for Bouchard. The hourlong piece draws on a case described by Oliver Sacks, in his book "Awakenings," of a woman plunged into a deep slumber for decades due to an epidemic sleeping sickness, then suddenly awakened by the drug L-dopa.

Bouchard is riveting as the confused, scared, yet vital Deborah, frozen in adolescence by her illness.

Returning to consciousness in her 40s, she chatters girlishly about siblings, parents, a boyfriend, and totters like a toddler on wobbly legs, as a doctor (Corrado) gently informs her she's lost a huge chunk of her youth — and much of all she knew and loved.

This crashes in on her in an upsetting reunion with her sister Pauline (a touching King) — who has sustained her own losses, ironically, in her sisterly devotion.

There is rage and sorrow in "A Kind of Alaska," but also a bracing wake-up call to the intensity of life itself — fleeting and precious.

"Ashes to Ashes" is a darker shade of Pinter, a return to signature motifs of sexual jealousy, betrayal, complacency, inhumanity.

Seated in side-by-side wing chairs, Rebecca (arch Bouchard) and Devlin (perturbed Corrado) are planets apart. Their own bond is testy, ill-defined. And as Rebecca describes a shadowy affair with S & M overtones, and dreams of Nazi-like persecution of innocents, the relationship between the couple grows more ambiguous, the parallels between domestic and political brutality more palpable.

The work here is also superb all-around: acting dagger-sharp, direction by Pappas spot-on, and the design work of Robert Dahlstrom and others, microcosmic.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com