The Revolve Theatre Company, which premiered in Tampa a few months ago with Caryl Churchill’s tantalizing Far Away, has now moved to St. Petersburg with an evening of Harold Pinter one-acts called Here’s to You, Harold Pinter! The good news is, each of the three plays currently on stage at The Studio@620 — Ashes to Ashes, Victoria Station, and A Kind of Alaska — is provocative and rewarding, and the first and the third are hauntingly original.
Further, two of the featured performers, Jessica Alexander and Meg Heimstead, turn in work so convincing, you’d think they grew up playing the Master of Pause-and-Effect. If Chris Jackson and James Rayfield aren’t quite as persuasive, both do impressive work as directors of one play or another (David O’Hara is the third fine director), and the event remains stimulating in spite of its defects. Anyway, how much living-room realism can you take in one lifetime? Smash the fourth wall and enjoy these fascinating one-acts. And let’s have more Pinter — and Strindberg, Genet, Beckett, Kane….
This article appears in Jan 27 – Feb 2, 2011.