Saturday night's marvelous performance of two plays by Harold Pinter played to a sold-out house at ACT's Bullitt Cabaret theater space. Afterward, two of the founders of this new company devoted to Pinter's works, actor Frank Corrado and director Victor Pappas, conducted a short conversation with each other and the audience. What they said was very cheering in these dark times for the arts and in the post-Pinter tristesse.
They talked about how tough it is for theater artists to get enough work these days, how easy it would be to settle into victimhood and self-pity. Instead, they decided to use the extra free time and "make our art." Corrado told about how affected he had been by Pinter's death two Christmases ago, and how that made him want to pay tribute to his favorite playwright by starting, of all things, a Pinter-only theater company in Seattle. Which they have done, including actress Suzanne Bouchard among the founders.
Their example brought to mind the advice from Michael Kaiser, "the turnaround king" in arts organizations, who has been stressing that donate to the fledgling company. What they have done should be encouraged for all kinds of exemplary reasons.
