Kourtney Brumfield

The Match Seller (Ward) silently observes Edward (Adam Evans) throwing a temper tantrum after finally realizing his fears of the outside world.

Katie Hillier
Staff Writer

Nobel Prize winning playwright Harold Pinter is known for his plays about the divided self, and last weekend the University of La Verne Theatre Arts Department brilliantly highlighted six of his plays in the “Echoes of a Master” one act festival at the Cabaret Theater.

All six plays dealt with the human condition and the actors danced quietly through his dialogue of perfectly spaced pauses and silences to give the audience a glimpse of lives in peril.

“If we can inspire some kind of thought, then we did our job,” said Melody Rahbari, a sophomore theater arts major and the director of “A Slight Ache.”

The plays included “Trouble in the Works,” “Betrayal,” “Landscape,” “The Dumb Waiter,” “A Slight Ache” and “The Collection.”

In “The Dumb Waiter,” two criminals, Ben and Gus, played by Kris Bicknell and Joey O’Neill, wait in a room beneath a cafe anticipating a job they are about to perform.

Kourtney Brumfield

During a dress rehearsal, director Melody Rahbari explains the emotion of the scene to the Match Seller (Melvin Ward) and Flora (Jessica Swapp) in “A Slight Ache.”

“I like the relationship that the two characters have; I like that it’s just them in a room,” said O’Neill, a sophomore theater major. “In the first one-third of the play nothing happens and I think it’s interesting to watch what people do in a small room with nothing to do but wait.”

Tony La Scala, a senior theater major, directed this play and felt its message was that someone is always watching.

“Landscape” was another play with an interesting message.

In this play, a husband and wife sit at a breakfast table reminiscing about the past.

What’s really interesting is that they are not communicating with each other.

Emmah Obradovich

Christopher Smith said he chose Harold Pinter’s play “The Collection” because it explores the intricacy of human relationships. The play, starring Tony DiBenedetto (left) and Michael Frederick, was performed after only two weeks of rehearsals.

Beth, played by Seanette Garcia, has a mental illness and has put herself into an idealized memory of her husband.

Meanwhile Duff, played by Stephen Ferrand, is moved to despair by her impenetrability.

“I think that by ‘Landscape’ (Pinter) means that we each have elements and surroundings that make up our life; we each have our own personal landscape,” said Micah Papalia, a junior theater major and the director of the play.

The evening was also highlighted with “The Collection,” which was one of Pinter’s earlier plays that deals with marriage, infidelity and miscommunication.

In this play Stella, played by Rhiannon Cuddy, tells her husband that she has been unfaithful to him with another man.

Kourtney Brumfield

Desperate for answers about his wife Stella’s infidelity, James (Sam Guznik) shoves Bill (DiBenedetto) to the floor demanding to know the truth of Bill’s affair with his wife in “The Collection.”

Her husband James, played by Sam Guznik, is furious and confronts this man – Bill, played by Tony DiBenedetto, who later admits and then denies the whole story.

On top of this, Bill lives with his gay friend Harry, played by Michael Frederick, who is also upset about the affair and runs to Stella for clarity.
The play ended when what appeared to be true was suddenly put into question.

Stella may or may not have slept with Bill, but the answer is left for the audience to ponder.

“I think Pinter’s main point is that some people can change and some people can’t,” said Frederick, a freshman theater major. “Trust isn’t always the best thing to revolve a relationship around because in the end it will hurt you.”

The Cabaret Theater was filled with a reasonable audience that even contained some of the actors in the plays.

Emmah Obradovich

Ben (Kris Bickell) stars in “The Dumbwaiter,” one of six plays by Harold Pinter. Joey O’Neill performed with Bicknell as part of ULV’s “Echoes of a Master” one act festival. Tony La Scala directed the play as part of the Directing Studio class.

The endings of these plays left audience members to decide for themselves and much was up to interpretation.

Adam Evans, a freshman theater arts major who performed in “Trouble in the Works” and “A Slight Ache” felt all the plays dealt with the examination of relationships in the human condition.

Katie Hillier can be reached at khillier@ulv.edu.