The Collection
Author: Harold Pinter
Title: “The Collection”
Editorial: Eyre Methuen
Year and place of publication: 1977 in London (this collection, the play in 1961)
Dramatis Personae:
- Harry: a man in his forties, he lives with Bill in a house in Belgravia.
- Bill: a man in his late twenties who lived with Harry he is designer.
- James: a man in his thirties, he is married with Stella since two years, they live in a flat in Chelsea.
- Stella: a woman in her thirties, she is designer as Bill, happily “married” with James.
Plot:
Its four o’clock in the morning, someone call by telephone asking for Bill, he is sleeping and Harry will not wake him up. This person had much interest in talk to Bill, but we do not know who he is. Next day this man calls again and this time talk to Billy and said him he will go to his house. Billy worried can’t imagine who can be.
James appear in his house because want to know if Billy has had something with her wife Stella when they were in Leeds few days ago, because she has tell him. Billy denied everything Stella had said because it is a lie. Then, James talk to Stella about if it is a lie or not, and Stella says the “truth”. Of course, James comes back to Billy and Harry’s house to talk with the first again.
On the other hand, Harry tired for all decides to go to James and Stella’s house and to talk with her about all happened it. After to have been talking Harry discover other ”truth” and goes to talk about that to James. When Harry returns his house, Bill and James, who are friends now, are playing a “game” with knives and Bill cuts his hand. Then Harry tells James what has been talking to Stella, only they were talking about they would do if they do something in the room, but it had not occurred nothing amongst they. At least “everything is clear”; until James arrives to the house and Stella decides tell him the “truth”.
Space and time:
Play occurs in three places in the present we have two, Harry and Bill’s house, and James and Stella’s house. In the past when Stella and Bill tell what happened the hotel in Leeds.
The time as in most of Pinter’s plays is short, play begins and ends in a few hours or like this case in few days, I think two or three.
Recourse:
Pinter contrast two opposite worlds, lives, and roles. On the one hand, we have houses, one is big, well decorated with classic furniture and many rooms (Harry and Bills house), and the other is small, with contemporary furniture and a few rooms.
Second, lives with activity and things for doing without to stop (Stella and Harry). Then, passive lives without to know what to do or in what spend the time (James and Bill).
Finally, roles Harry and James want to have answers but will not have it, and Bill and Stella know the truth and the lie, the light and the darkness, they direct the plot leaving all on the air.
Opinion:
In my opinion is a funny play because play is every time of this manner, lies and truths mix like one, we never can’t know what is true and what not, what create a funny situation because when you think all was fine, someone says another “true” and circle never ends.
At the end we can think Stella says the truth or not, I choose the second, because having seen it happens in play every time, I doubt she had said the truth this time. As every plays by Pinter, it get at the end of his plays do not to leave you indifferent, like you have not read, on the contrary he leaves some open without solve or clear up, for you could think and you ends story how you prefer.