The Collection

La Collection is a fascinating and sombre play. The text distils the poison of the lie. James wants to know the truth about what really happened one night in Leeds between his wife Stella and Bill. Bill stays with Harry in Belgravia, a posh neighbourhood of London, Stella and James in Chelsea, the artists’ district.  What is the real nature of the bond between Harry and Bill? What is James really looking for? What does Stella want?  Which reins of passion drive each of these characters between fantasy and jealousy? Pinter points us toward multiple tracks, each a possible beginning of another fiction…  a collection.

Because this piece is made of fragments. An unusual mixture of realism and abstraction, it describes the characters only by words necessary to indicate the action.The intrigue borrows its form from a thriller. Since 1961 when it was written, the dazzling advent of digital technology, mobile phones, and social media has changed our relationship to truth and knowledge. Surveillance, control, algorithms have invaded our life.  The transparency! Thanks to new technologies we are supposed to see everything, know everything in real time, and yet… The more readily the truth seems accessible, the better the lies spread.  Fake news, manipulations of all sorts… The truth seems to elude us at the same pace that the dematerialisation advances. Another life, the second life, that of our virtual existence, follows us like a star, like a shadow. So what becomes today of these characters that Pinter created over fifty years ago, that seem to wonder about in the modern city, in the avant-garde of our life-modes?

Ludovic Lagarde