WHAT we were hoping for was an admission of a fracas between actor and director, stories of tantrums, pouts, pregnant pauses and brawls, an out and out contretemps. But no. Actor Harold Pinter and director Alan Stanford's only quibble has been over a question mark in the text (Stanford won, Stanford claimed). During rehearsals, Pinter might occasionally say "Can the writer say something?" Otherwise, their collaboration on The Collection had been "a joyous experience," Stanford boomed. "The precision of the text is absolute."
Just how absolute was illustrated by Mr Pinter, who explained that when his publishers Faber & Faber released his first book, a full stop was misprinted as a comma in the first line of text. Pinter insisted that the publisher insert an erratum slip immediately. They complied, immediately. One imagines that fleets of proof readers have been employed ever since to avoid a similar transgression.
Pinter, Stanford and le tout Gate had gathered in the Shelbourne on Thursday evening to announce details of the forthcoming Pinter Festival - and also to give the actors and directors of the four plays a chance to meet before losing sight of one another between April 7th and 27th, while the festival is on.
In the first production, Harold Pinter plays the lead role, once played by Sir Laurence Olivier, in The Collection (1961) alongside Ingrid Craigie, Gerald McSorley - and the radiant Frank McCusker, whose acquired tan suggests that he may have to disrobe for his art. Next on the programme is the much anticipated Ashes To Ashes, starring Stephen Rea and Lindsay Duncan, which Pinter will direct. There will be only five performances of this two hander, first, seen at the Royal Court in London last autumn.
Pinter the actor can also be seen later this year in the film version of Jez Bullerworth's play Mojo, set in the London crime world. "The Al Capone of Greek Street, that's me, is how he described his role. Acting, writing, directing . . . I feel as if I was born in a theatre," he said, reminding the company that he had toured with Anew McMaster in Ireland in the 1950s.
He is happy to work here. Barcelona has also produced a Pinter festival and the playwright said Dublin had much in common with the Catalan capital. "Warm reception ... quick and lively audiences... in London they tend to sleep."