Theatrical lecture Module
“THE COLLECTION”
by Harold Pinter
“The Collection” was
written by Harold Pinter in 1961 and it was first presented by Associated Rediffusion
Television,
In this play appear four
characters: Harry (in his forties), James (in his thirties), Stella (in her
thirties) and Bill (in his late twenties). The author only gives this
information about the characters in the firsts pages
at the beginning of the play. All we can know about the characters is through
their actions. James is married with Stella. Harry shares flat with Bill. I can
not say more things about the characters because I am going to describe the
plot and the characters will be described by the actions that they do.
The story starts with
telephone calls asking for Bill. James goes to see Bill and to talk to him. He
tells Bill that he
has been sleeping with his wife. Bill does not believe it,
he says that he does not know who is his wife. But after Bill recognise he has
kissed Stella in the hotel. James continues visiting Bill. Stella tells Harry
that the unfaithfulness was a invented history by her
husband, now we can say that Bill continues the falsehood. Harry tells this to
Bill and James and their surprise is that Stella really invents the story. They
want to know the truth, but at the end of the play Stella does not confirms or denies
nothing. The play ends with the doubt about if the story is true or false, and
who says the truth and the lie.
The space of this play
is described in the beginning of the play. Harold Pinter says that in the stage
were two rooms separate by a “promontory”.
At the right is James’ flat and at the left is Harry’s house. James’ flat has contemporary
decoration or furnishing and Harry’s house is decorated modishly. The time,
difficult topic in this play; I think the action occurs on some days. It is
difficult to study this point.
About the language, I
have to say, as in other Harold Pinter plays, that
have a lot of silence, not less important than the dialogues. It is easy to
understand what the characters say, because they talk on a
very common English.
I think that the author
wants to transmit us the necessity of entrust somebody, because in this case
James, that I thinks that represents a lot of people, believe all that
everybody tell him, from my point of view I believe that he does not confide
with no one. He is very confused about things that all the rest of characters tells to him. I think this character, James is model to
describe a lot of people, nowadays people do not entrust with anyone.