THE Collection was the title of the first play in the Pinter Festival at the Gate - and what a collection arrived to see the first night on Wednesday. Most of the actors involved in the festival were there, as were the directors, including Alan Stanford. It was "handy" having Harold Pinter present, he said, so he could occasionally check what the playwright was on about. Gay Byrne was also perplexed. "What was that all about?" he asked of Ben Barnes. Thus the director said to the broadcaster: "Better to do it than to talk about doing it."
Stanford's attentions were divided between the festival flurry and rehearsals for Art, a play which Stanford will appear in at the Gate alongside Stephen Brennan and Mark Lambert. Barnes was looking after three quarters of the cast in Pinter's No Man's Land which he will direct - T.P. McKenna, Niall Buggy and Tony Haygarth. Though he seemed quite relaxed, Haygarth has been hugely busy. Popping up on your screens as Vie Snow in ITV's new series Where The Heart Is, Haygarth has also just finished two films; Phil Agland's The Woodlanders in which he co stars with Rufus Sewell, Polly Walker and newcomer Emily Wool, and Ivan Kidron's Amy Foster with Rachel Weiss and Vincent Perez. Perez, you might remember, had the unfortunate task of taking on Brandon Lee's part in The Crow after Lee was shot on set, but Haygarth said no such ill luck pursued them on set this time.
Neil Jordan, sporting a boyish new haircut, was there with his wife, Brenda Rawn. Having just completed the film of Pat McCabe's The Butcher Boy, Jordan is now working in, the States on a project which he firmly declared has no connection with Ireland whatsoever. Another director, Garry Hynes, watched The Collection with her brother Jerome Hynes, who is busy firming up the schedule for Wexford's next Opera Festival.
Biographer Victoria Glendinning, Pinter's cigar smoking agent Ed Victor and Lady Antonia Fraser were also on hand - Lady Fraser described her links with Ireland as "particularly strong due to this man", pointing not to her husband, Mr Pinter, but to the bust of Lord Longford to whom she is related and with whom she spent holidays as a child.
The British ambassador, Veronica Sutherland, was welcomed by Michael Colgan and the British Council's Harold Fish who was as ebullient as ever the council is supporting the Pinter festival and the Cuirt poetry festival in Galway which opens this week. Meanwhile Laura Pels, whose foundation supported the Pinter retrospective, had travelled farthest for the opening - all the way from New York. Most of the principals retired to the Trocadero for a late supper.