‘Old Times,’ Where the Past Is a Dangerous Place
Ben BrantleyOctober 6, 2015: Theatergoers who cringe at the sight of a lighted cigarette, be warned: They’re smoking up a smog storm at the American Airlines Theater, where Douglas Hodge’s overwrought revival of Harold Pinter’s “Old Times” opened on Tuesday night. And they’re not just puffing discreetly and defensively, the way those poor huddled herds of New Yorkers do outside office buildings on their coffee breaks. No, this flamboyant production’s three vibrant performers – Eve Best, Kelly Reilly and Clive Owen – are brandishing their cigarettes with a glamorous fury not seen since Bette Davis was the nicotine queen of the movie melodrama. Like Davis, they know the value of punctuating a threat with a staggered exhalation of gray clouds. So when I say that sparks fly in this play — a 1971 portrait of a man, a woman and her friend discovering how much and how little they know about one another — I am not speaking metaphorically, or at least not only so. Once you can see past the, uh, smoke screen, there’s evidence of real emotional embers smoldering among this talented ensemble, who are just waiting for the moment to turn into human flamethrowers.
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