By Ana Pollo/Special to the Revelstoke Times Review
Entering the high school for a performance usually means having a seat in the Revelstoke Performing Arts Centre.
The Revelstoke Theatre Company will present The Dumb Waiter in the intimate little black room just down the stairs from the RPAC.
Entering the performance space, I immediately felt that live performance energy; it’s certainly a more appropriate venue for the close and claustrophobic one-room setting for one of British drama titan Harold Pinter’s most acclaimed works.
When I arrive, the actors already in the space and in character – a deliberate, unsettling tool deployed by director Anita Hallewas.
A poet, playwright and political activist, Pinter is known for absurdist theatre – a style based on the philosophy that humans are out of tune with the universe. This makes life a meaningless and absurd experience driven simply by power struggle.
In The Dumb Waiter, Pinter marries this absurdist theme to black comedy, making light of otherwise dark or serious subject matter.
It translates into two female assassins waiting for the call to murder in the basement of a cafe. They communicating in colloquial British-isms and cast-off phrases. What gives this absurdist thriller its menacing atmosphere is the visceral reactions to the actors’ articulation, pauses and delivery.
Even simple phrases hint at double meanings.
Anna Fin and Sarah Harper star is this dark and brutishly funny one-act play. Sarah Harper, known for her last performance in the Revelstoke Theatre Company’s Fuel, delivers a great performance in a convincing British hoodlum accent. Anna Fin, a seasoned actor in theatre, TV and film, makes her debut on the Revelstoke stage with this performance. Her performance keeps the play building with inquisitive antics and a lively, reactive performance.
Theatre junkies will gush, the average Joe will get a round of kicks from the amusing duelling dialogue in British accents and all will feel the suspense, as we await the assassins’ assignment.
The performance is at the Revelstoke Secondary School drama room. Opening March 20–22 and 27–29 at 8 p.m.
Tickets online through the Revelstoke Theatre Company, or at the front desk of Powder Springs Inn, or at the door.
$10 for adults $5 for youth.