Marya Hart Music

I went to the preview of the Minneapolis Pinter Studies project with a buddy Wednesday night. Four short pieces–each with its own director, dramaturge and cast–were presented “promenade” style throughout the old Colonial Warehouse. The outcome was mixed…as is to be expected. The torture play slayed me; the radio play baffled me. Scotty Reynolds has put this project together, and wants to explore other writers and genres in similar ways. I ended up thinking, a few days later, that it was wonderful for the directors to have an opportunity to do work that normally wouldn’t be staged outside academia. I admire Scotty’s passion and the nurturing role he played in building this project up.  I wonder what the next project will be.

Portrait of Pinter by Dick Scott-Stewart

From the conclusion of Pinter’s Nobel lecture:

When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror - for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man.