Customer Reviews

Other Places: Three Plays: A Kind of Alaska; Victoria Station; Family Voices (Pinter, Harold)

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Harold Pinter uses silence like a visual artist uses negative space. He uses it as the framework around which to place his stunning, sparse dialogue. The three short plays in this collection are some of his best. The first one, `Family Voices', tells the story of a dysfunctional family indirectly through letters they send to each other. The second play, `One for the Road' is a tense, suspenseful piece set in an oppressive police state. The last work in the collection, `A Kind of Alaska' features a woman waking from a coma after three decades and dealing with the fact that she is no longer a teenager.

The above descriptions don't do justice to the complexity in each play. Pinter is able to express multiple levels with very few words and simple sets. Not only have I read each of these plays, I have seen them performed and I have acted in them. The experience is nearly as intense no matter how you encounter them. This collection, in particular, does a good job of presenting the works. The words are clear and easy to read and the dialogue is well-spaced. I can recommend this collection to any fan of unusual, gripping theater.