The Collection and The Lover

by Harold Pinter

"The Collection" develops the themes of menace and lack of communication. "The Lover" is a one-act play for television, in which two characters play the double parts of wife-mistress and husband-lover.

Also included is a short story, "The Examination".

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, British Literature, Fiction

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.

Reviews

[Yngvild · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Collection is a classic teasing short Harold Pinter play. There are only four characters, two pairs, and the stage shows their living rooms divided by a public area containing a public telephone box (remember them?).

The apparent truth is that one pair is a middle-class man and his working-class toy boy. The other couple is young heterosexual pair. But is that true? Supposedly, the wife and the toy boy met recently at an out of town dress collection. But did they?

Over the course of the play, the various combinations of characters talk, threaten, flirt and lie. In typical Pinter fashion, the woman is slightly isolated, the only one not to meet all the other characters, a fey creature manipulating the others with her fables. Or is she?

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” – Harold Pinter quoting himself in his 2005 Nobel Lecture

[Giorgi Komakhidze · Rating 3 out of 5]

" There’s a certain kind of slum mind which is perfectly all right in a slum, but when this kind of slum mind gets out of the slum it sometimes persists, you see, it rots everything. That’s what Bill is. There’s something faintly putrid about him, don’t you find? Like a slug. There’s nothing wrong with slugs in their place, but he’s a slum slug; there’s nothing wrong with slum slugs in their place, but this one won’t keep his place – he crawls all over the walls of nice houses, leaving slime, don’t you, boy? He confirms stupid sordid little stories just to amuse himself, while everyone else has to run round in circles to get to the root of the matter and smooth the whole thing out. "

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Collection is a very short, absurdist play. The play revolves completely around 2 pairs of characters in their living rooms, with a public telephone between them. This play is all about character dialogue, and the psychological truths and untruths underpinning each. If you like Pinter, absurdist, or avante-garde drama, you will like this short work. If you do not, you will hate it.

See my other reviews here!

[Noecito Castillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harold Pinter is an amazing theatre writer. Both these plays reminded me a little of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. And that's a very good thing.
I just love when a play leaves me hanging.

[Marion · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is so short that I don't really know what to think of it. Plus, it belongs to the Theater of the Absurd, so the whole story doesn't really makes sense.

[Joe Loftus · Rating 4 out of 5]

So brilliant. How does Pinter do it? Always the same voice. So unique and original. So terrifying. The power and the menace. Nobody has been able to replicate it. Class.

[Rachel Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two short plays.

The Collection

An absurd play which centres around four characters but are connected by a night in a hotel room in Leeds, or are they?

The Lover

A play about a couple who have been married for years and both have lovers who visit regularly, a normal system but soon things take a different and unusual turn.

It’s been a while since I have read any Harold Pinter but I completely forgot how good his writing is or maybe I didn’t appreciate it eight years ago, he is a playwright of the absurd and his work is unusual but cleverly constructed. I had read ‘The Lover’ a few years ago but it was still interesting but I had never read ‘The Collection’ and I thought it was fantastic. Definitely recommend this little collection if your new to Pinter.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes me happily back to my teenage discovery of the delights of such as Beckett, Sartre, Camus... Loved revisiting this still powerful though now nostalgic theatre of menace. And loved the bonus little short story The Examination!

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

gave me lots to think about, will definitely revisit.

[Sara Ghotb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unreliable narrators, diverse realities and multiple truths. Perplex, unique and original!

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

کلکسیون؛ 1961، یک کمدی "پینترگونه" است، درباره ی ممکن ها و ناممکن ها، با زبانی پیش پا افتاده و سکوت های طولانی. جیمز از همسرش استلا می شنود که یک شب با دوستش بیل خوابیده. بیل می گوید این داستان اختراع استلاست. لحظه ای بعد اعتراف می کند که کمی او را بوسیده. بعدتر می گوید در موردش با هم صحبت کردیم ولی کاری نکردیم. جیمز کم کم حس می کند مردی که روبروی اوست، دوستش نیست، کسی ست که زنش را گاییده. بیل را به یک دوئل با چاقوهای خانه دعوت می کند. بیل در دوئل خراش بر می دارد. هری که تازه وارد شده، به جیمز می گوید این داستان ساخته ی استلاست و بیل و استلا هرگز یکدیگر را ندیده اند. بیل هم تایید می کند که این داستان برای سرگرمی ساخته شده اما لحظه ای بعد می گوید با استلا دو ساعتی حرفش را زدیم ولی یکدیگر را لمس هم نکردیم. جیمز به خانه بر می گردد و از استلا می پرسد؛ تو کاری نکردی، کردی؟ سکوت. داستان حقیقیه؟ ..سکوت ..فقط حرفش را زدید یا.. سکوت... آره؟ ... سکوت ...جواب بده. استلا فقط نگاهش می کند، بی تایید یا تکذیب. انگار نسبت به جیمز ترحم دارد، چهره اش دوستانه است. بنظر می رسد هیچ اتفاقی نیفتاده...

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[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Absurdist Theatre sometimes works for me, sometimes not - let us see what this is all about...

THE COLLECTION was first presented by Associated Rediffusion Television, London on 11th May 1961. The play was first presented on the stage at the Aldwych Theatre on 18th June 1962 with Michael Hordern playing Harry and Barbara Murray as Stella.

~~~~~~~~

I thought the telephone box played its part superbly.

[Searchingthemeaningoflife Greece · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Σιωπές έχουμε δύο ειδών. Η πρώτη δημιουργείται με την απουσία λόγου. Η δεύτερη με χείμαρρο λέξεων, που κάτω τους ξεδιακρίνουμε τους απόηχους μιας άλλης γλώσσας, φυλακισμένης. Γενικά, την ομιλία θα μπορούσαμε να τη δούμε σαν μόνιμο ελιγμό για να αποκρύψουμε τη γυμνότητα"

[Hend · Rating 3 out of 5]

only read The collection.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read "Lover'. Loved it. Twisted truth about sexual life in marriage.

[Naeem Nedaee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typical Pinteresque style! Enjoyable!

[Mahsa]

wooow, anoher wow of Pinter

[Heba Tariq · Rating 3 out of 5]

"أبهرتنى النهاية الخاصة ب"العشيق
برغم إن المسرحية كلها غير عقلانية

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical Pinter play with sinister and mysterious dialog and implied badness.