Arts & Entertainment

Pinter double bill

Unexpected alliances, role playing enliven ‘60s minis

Published

9 years ago

October 6, 2017

Patrick Folliard

Shakespeare Theatre Company, gay news, washington blade

Patrick Ball (left) and Jack Koenig in ’The Collection.’ (Photo by Carol Bosegg; courtesy STC)

‘The Lover’ and ‘The Collection’

Through Oct. 29

Shakespeare Theatre Company

Lansburgh Theatre

450 7th St., N.W.

202-547-1122

Shakespeare.org

Six seasons ago, Shakespeare Theatre Company’s out artistic director made a great success with Harold Pinter’s 1971 mesmeric exploration of memory “Old Times.” Now he’s returned to Pinter with a double bill of one acts from earlier in the British playwright’s career, “The Lover” and “The Collection.”

Penned in the early 1960s originally for television broadcast, the plays are poised on the precipice of the swinging ’60s. It’s not about free sex, but rather a darkly funny examination of characters (gay and straight) who are involved in games of one-upmanship and dominance, and constructing their own truths.

“The Lover” is about Sarah (a perfectly pressed Lisa Dwan) and Richard (the excellent Patrick Kennedy), a young married couple living in a London suburb who initially seem totally average, humdrum and a bit stuffy. But then, just before Richard heads off to the office, he calmly asks Sarah if she will be seeing her lover later in the day.

She replies affirmatively. Soon it becomes clear that the husband is in fact the lover and the couple are engaged in some serious ongoing role playing. In the afternoon, Richard — in the guise of a rumpled Beatnik — returns home for a heated tryst. Awaiting his arrival, Sarah doffs her sensible day frock and slips into an alluring lace cocktail dress. But all is not of fun and games and their meetings become increasingly spiteful. Where this will lead is unclear as are their true feelings.

“The Collection,” the second of the night’s offerings, involves couples Stella and James (again Dwan and Kennedy) who have been married for two years; and prickly, middle-aged Harry (terrific out actor Jack Koenig) and his seductive, much younger boyfriend, Bill (a perfectly cast Patrick Ball). None of the four seem happy in their relationships.

Convinced that Stella and Bill had a one-night stand while away on business in Leeds, James decides to confront the competition: “You’re not a film star, but you’re quite tolerable looking, I suppose,” says James to Bill who seems gay but is presumably bisexual. Their meeting, the first of several, is a mix of menace and attraction.

Meanwhile Harry pays a fact-finding visit to Stella. What’s actually happened between Stella and Bill is confirmed and denied. Ultimately it doesn’t matter what is true or isn’t.

At an about an hour each and separated by an intermission, the pieces are finely acted and expertly rendered. Kahn has assembled a talented quartet of actors (all except Koenig new to STC) who ably handle the rhythm and silences of Pinter’s particular language. With well-timed Pinter pauses, they impart more meaning into the work than what the spoken words alone convey.

The all-woman design team is stellar. Jane Greenwood’s costumes expand on the characters’ personalities, wants and stations. Bill’s memorably form-fitting plaid trousers and Harry’s black tie and smoking robe are all spot on. Debra Booth’s remarkably serviceable set of three households impeccably reflects its respective inhabitants’ aspirations to bourgeois comfort, tidiness or cool. Mary Louise Geiger’s lighting technically clever shifts the actions from home to home while imbuing the scene with an element of mystery and suspicion.

For fans of Pinter’s unreal realism, Shakespeare’s latest is satisfyingly good. For those new to his work, it’s the perfect introduction.

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Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

12 hours ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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