Reading Between the Pauses

Harold Pinter has been remarkably absent from the New York theater scene over the last few years. Every season seems to bring with it a Tennessee Williams or Noel Coward revival, but with the exception of The Homecoming, Pinter hasn’t much been seen lately. Expect that to change with The [Atlantic’s double-header] of Pinter’s two one acts The Collection & A Kind of Alaska: Two Plays By Harold Pinter.

“The Collection,” which starts the evening, kicks things off with a creeping sense of menace. James (Darren Pettie) keeps calling on designer Bill (Matt McGrath) at the home Bill shares with Harry (Larry Bryggman), convinced that Bill has had an affair with his wife. For reasons of his own, Bill toys with James, first denying, then admitting, then partially denying the latter’s accusations. James’ wife, Stella (Rebecca Henderson), meanwhile, is as untrustworthy as everyone else, preferring the company of her cat to confessing her sins.

Violence lurks throughout “The Collection,” although it never explodes into reality. Pettie towers over the foppish McGrath (who has been outfitted most fabulously by Bobby Frederick Tilley II), but McGrath’s oily demeanor seems to both attract and repel him. Their gradual friendship is perhaps the most menacing aspect of the story, since neither has any visible reason to share cocktail hour with one another. The silences between them seem to scream, until broken by some jagged exchange that upends the uneasy balance of power between the two.

That balance is echoed in James’ and Bill’s relationships with Stella and Harry, both of whom are capable of casually dismissing the men they live with. In true Pinter fashion, more questions are raised than are answered (most notably why Stella would claim to have had an affair with the seemingly gay Bill), but “The Collection” remains an unsettling memory.

“A Kind of Alaska” also lingers, but without the same power. Inspired by Oliver Sack’s nonfiction book Awakenings, about the victims of encephalitis lethargic who were brought back to life 50 years later with the drug L-DOPA, Pinter’s short work lethargically explores the moments directly after Deborah (Lisa Emery) wakes up in a strange bed in the presence of a strange man.

Emery, a talented actress who makes Deborah into a chatterbox trying to keep fear at bay, is portraying a middle-aged woman who last remembers being a 16-year-old girl. But for some reason, director Karen Kohlhaas directs her to speak and behave as if she were an 8-year-old, with cloying naivete and willful stupidity. As Bryggman watches on as Deborah’s doctor, Emery chirps her way through the role, with occasional flashes of sudden terror. Even the presence of her sister (Henderson again) can’t persuade Deborah that any time has elapsed. Eventually, Deborah’s behavior reveals itself to be about avoiding the reality of her situation, but that doesn’t make her childishness any more palatable.

[The Collection & A Kind of Alaska: Two Plays By Harold Pinter]

Through Dec. 19, Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St. (betw. 3rd & 4th Aves.), 212-279-4200; $65.