Harold Pinter’s Stage Adaptation of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past Makes U.S. Debut January 16 By: Ellis Nassour
In celebration of Tony-winning playwright Harold Pinter’s long association with 92Y’s Poetry Center [1395 Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street], currently celebrating its 75th Anniversary, there’ll be a first time in the U.S. stage debut of the screenplay he adapted from Proust’s seven-volume masterpiece Remembrance of Things Past. The one-night-only reading is January 16 at 8 P.M.
Pinter, of The Homecoming fame, has been a huge presence on Broadway this season. A revival of his 1977 Drama Desk-nominated No Man’s Land is still running [co-starring Billy Crudup, Shuler Hensley, Sir Ian McKellen, and Sir Patrick Stewart] in repertory with Waiting for Godot; and the Broadway revival of Betrayal [co-starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Stephen DeRosa] closed over the weekend after a two-month limited engagement. The playwright and sometimes director passed away in 2008.
In 1972, Pinter and director Di Trevis adapted the never-filmed script for the stage for London’s National Theatre. John Updike wrote, "This affords us the pleasure of yet another angle of perception of a work so elaborate and many-faceted that it never fails to give back new light."
Trevis will co-direct a cast of 13 with Ed Sylvanus Iskandar. Beginning at 6:30, ticket buyers may attend Ms. Trevis’ conversation with The New York Times‘ Alastair Macaulay about her working with Pinter. She began adapting Pinter’s screenplay for the stage in 1996 without his knowledge. When she met with him in 1997, she recounts in Remembrance of Things Proust: A Rehearsal Diary, "I expected him to be furious and dismissive. However, he listened in silence and then poured two glasses of wine and said, ‘This sounds pretty interesting,’ and suggested we take the project to the Royal National Theatre."
Pinter appeared at 92Y’s Poetry Center five times between 1964 and 1996, to read his plays, stories and poems. In his 1964 appearance, Pinter read from works Tea Party and New Year in the Midlands. To listen to a recording visit http://92yondemand.org/harold-pinter-tea-party-new-year-in-the-midlands-and-other-readings/.
Tickets for the Remembrance reading and discussion are $27, $15 for those 35 and younger; and available at the 92Y’s box office or online at http://www.92y.org/Event/Pinter-PROUST.aspx|. For more information, call (212) 415-5500.
