Auditions for Old Times by Harold Pinter 
Directed and designed by Marc Beaudin

January 20th and 21st, 2025 at the Blue Slipper at 7 pm.
 
Cast: 2 women, 1 man, 30s through 50s, of similar ages to each other. No preparation is necessary. Audition sides will be provided.

First produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in June 1971, and hitting Broadway later that year, Old Times has continued to enrapture audiences and critics alike. The Independent called it one of Pinter’s “most haunting and unnerving pieces,” and named it as one of the 40 best plays ever written. The Daily Telegraph described it as, “haunting stage poetry of memory and desire.”

Deeley and his wife Kate are visited by Anna, a mysterious friend of Kate’s from long ago. What begins as a trip down memory lane quickly becomes something more, as long-simmering feelings of fear and jealousy begin to fuel the trio’s passions, sparking a seductive battle for power.
 
A review in The Guardian notes: “One reason Pinter's play is so resonant is that it exposes the way we shape the past according to the psychological needs of the present. Deeley, a thriving film-maker, and his wife Kate are visited in the country by the latter's onetime flatmate, Anna. What follows is a fierce battle for possession of the withdrawn, cryptically private Kate. The weapons used include snatches of popular song, physical intimacies and, above all, memory.”
 
Our production marks Beaudin’s 10th time directing at the Blue Slipper, with favorites being No Exit, Proof and Dracula.
 
“The first play I ever directed was Pinter’s Betrayal, in 2000,” he says. “I’m excited to return to his work after nearly a quarter century of honing this craft. What I love most about Pinter is his genius with subtext: the surface of the words is just the tiniest bit of what’s happening below that surface, in the unspoken and unspeakable depths of our psyches. He leaves us questioning everything we think we know.”