The Collection

by Harold Pinter

Stella returns from her dress collection in Leeds to tell James, her husband, that she has been unfaithful. James confronts Bill, pressing for the truth, already determined to believe the worst. Bill confesses that he and Stella had only talked about spending the night together. It had amused him to perpetuate Stella's story - to hurt his friend Harry. Is this the truth? Stella is silent.

Genres: Plays, Fiction

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.

Reviews

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

جالب ترین ویژگیش برای من، نشون دادنِ جدا افتادگی و حتی پس زده شدنِ شخصیت زن بود. تو یک نمایش نسبتا کوتاه اینقدر درست و عمیق این گسستگی رابطه رو نشون داد که واقعا لذت بردم.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

زمانی بود که من از ابزوردها فراری بودم. هیچ چیز در آنها نمی دیدم،‌ سوالی برایم طرح نمی شد و جوابی هم نمی گرفتم! اینکه این روزها ابزوردها را جذاب می بینم، نمی دانم نشانه ی بالارفتن سن و عقل است یا تماشای پوچی زندگی نظرم را تغییر داده.
مثبت یا منفی، این نمایشنامه را دوست داشتم.
سرپا میان قفسه های کتابخانه خوانده شد.*

[Nasrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

‌هارولد پینتر به‌عنوان چشمگیرترین نمایشنامه‌نویس معاصر انگلیسی مشهوره.
‌
وقتی درباره پینتر خوندم فهمیدم او در کارهاش دنبال مطرح کردن این دو سوال به اشکال متفاوت در لایه‌های شخصیت هاست:‌
‌‌من کیستم؟‌‌
‌حقیقت چیست؟‌
‌
‌تم این سوالات شما رو یاد چه نویسنده و چه دست آثاری انداخت؟ ‌بکت؟ کافکا؟ ‌
‌
‌اگه آره که باید بگم درست حدس زدید، پینتر عاشق بکت بوده و حالت شاعرانگی و غنای آثارش تماما از بکت سرچشمه گرفته است. و کافکا هم که خدای پیچ و تاب دادن ذات و هدف وجودی و سرگشتی ما آدمها و گیر هم افتادنمون است.
‌
‌این نمایشنامه، شامل ۴شخصیت (یک زن و سه مرد) است . صحنه به سه قسمت کاملا مجزا و دکور متفاوت آراسته شده. در دو سمت راست و چپ به عنوان منزل هرکدام از اینها و در عقب سن و روی یک پرتگاه باجه تلفن قرار داره. که با کم و زیاد شدن نور در هر نقطه بازیگران شروع به بازی میکنن. و باید بگم از اون دست نمایشنامه هاست که دیدنش خیلی خیلی گیراتر از خوندنشه!
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‌داستان از باجه تلفن و تماس یک فرد ناشناس(جیمز) به یکی از این خونه ها و تقاضای دیدن و حرف زدن با بیل شروع میشه اما جای بیل، هاری گوشیو برمیداره. چند روز میگذره و یکدفعه جیمز دم در آنها ظاهر میشه و با گذاشتن پایش لای در، بیل رو وادار میکنه به حرفاش گوش کنه!
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پرسش‌گر و جوینده اصلی در ابتدای کار جیمز هست!میخواد بدونه بیل با زنش(استلا، تک بازیگر زن قصه) فلان روز و فلان جا "واقعا" رابطه برقرار کرده؟ ‌‌
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‌در ادامه پرسش‌های بیشتری بیان میشه تا چرخش های گمراه کننده ای در داستان شکل بگیره. پینتر در تمام نمایش ماهرانه و بدون پیچیدگی ما رو گیج تر میکنه.
‌ ‌
کدام یک از این افراد تنهاتر و جداافتاده تر هستن؟ حقیقت چیه و دروغگو کیه. آیا اصلا گناهکاری در این بین وسطه یا همه گناهکارن؟ و در آخر اینکه ما کِی و چگونه مجاز به پرسیدن و کنجکاوی هستیم.
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‌همه این مفاهیم در حدود ۶۰ صفحه بیان شده است. ‌
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🚫اسپویل🚫‌
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تا آخر داستان، برام رابطه ی هاری و بیل و رفتارای مرموز جیمز با بیل عجیب بود. فقط آخر داستان که هاری با نگرانی دست بیل رو گرفت شک ام، قوت گرفت و تو نت گشتم و خوندم داستان حول محور دو زوج میگذرد!
در اونجا شکم به یقین بدل گشت و فهمیدم بیل همجنسگرا بود! گفتم اگه نمیدونستید بدونید!‌

[Paul Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harold Pinter is one of my favorite playwrights, and there are plenty of plays of his to choose from, but I'll sing the praises of one that I don't think gets as much attention as some of his other work. In "The Collection," Pinter once again examines unfaithfulness. It's not that thematically dissimilar to what he explored in "Betrayal," but done through the staging of a different dynamic, this might be more accessible than some of his other work.

Like so many of Harold Pinter's plays, he seems to begin each scene in the aftermath of something awful that we haven't seen. So the audience is thrown right into the middle of an already charged atmosphere. You sense the tension and feel the dread right when the scene begins before anything has happened. It makes us more active in the scene as we try to get our bearings. I can understand why this might leave people frustrated, but you will find yourself intensely engaged if you give in to that mysterious tension. Suddenly every line comes with a menacing threat of violence. Most Pinter plays buzz with this same anxiety, but it is especially effective here where we understand what these characters' agendas might be and know what's at stake for each of them.

[Safa Furkan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeni yıla bu kısa ama muhteşem eserle başlamak bütün yıl için beni heyecanlandırdı.

[Fawad Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This, like THE LOVER and BETRAYAL, is one of Pinter's most accessible of plays and full of typical painteresque tension and power-play.

[Vel Veeter]

This is a kind of horror play in a way, about doubt and the inability to know something. We begin with a phone call in the early morning, which wakes up one of the characters. Later, a man shows up at a house demanding to speak to the owner. What eventually shakes out is that the older man is the husband of a woman who has recently returned from a trip to Leeds. She has confessed to infidelity while in Leeds and implicated the owner of the house (and also the recipient of the phone call). Through the conversation the man who was in Leeds begins by saying nothing happened, eventually says there was some kissing, and eventually discusses how he and the woman spent a large amount of time in the lobby discussing what would happen if they did have an affair. But the incongruity of these different scenarios (however likely they are and however blended of the three the truth might be, including definitions about “nothing happened”) are not the issue here, the issue is the breakdown in language to function in the husband’s brain to make what he thinks, wants or believes happened happened, especially using the language that he has used to make it work. The situation here is like a man trying to map an schema of the actuality of a situation onto the way that he conceived it, and is more adamant to fix the misalignment than to worry about the specific truth.

[Mihaela · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Collection ⭐️
It would have worked if either they were gay or the had Bipolar Personality Disorder or both simultaneously.

The Lover ⭐️
Lady was crazy and was living a hundred different lives at the same time.

I understand why this book was left at a bus stop in Germany. The previous owner did the right thing and I am continuing their deed further by leaving the book at a bus stop as well for the next person to suffer.

[Anton Segers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eén van de leukere Pinters. Hij is eenzijdig, houdt zich in dit spel over overspel enkel bezig met de schijnheilige ironie en leugenachtige tactieken die blijkbaar deel uitmaakt van de Britse identiteit.
Er is weinig evolutie, je ontdekt nooit wat de onderliggende waarheid is, dat is Pinter. Maar de spelletjes zijn stijlvol en soms ook spannend.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dunno. In my dotage I have begun to question the greatness of Pinter's plays.

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

頗為無厘頭，情節有點亂。粵語翻譯中規中矩。

[Solly Bowden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice bit of Pinter to remember how to write.

[Dilek Uzunoğlu · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Gerçeğin tek versiyonu yoktur. Çünkü bir olay gerçekleştiğinde, yaşandığında her karakter kendisi için önemli olanı hafızaya alır ve sonra da onu anımsar."

[Shai Kauffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good as always

[Courtney Ravelo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Out of the three Pinter plays I’ve read so far, this is the one that made the most sense, and it still didn’t even make sense. Make of that what you will.

[cas · Rating 3 out of 5]

pinter loves some infidelity and very british subtext