The Collection & A Kind of Alaska: Two Plays by Harold Pinter

Atlantic Theater Company offers a diptych of one-acts by the late Nobel laureate Harold Pinter. In The Collection, most of the the actors fumble the jazz of Pinter's black-edged 1961 marital comedy, counting out their pauses and measuring their notes, but missing the swing. But the second piece, 1982's A Kind of Alaska—starring the astonishing Lisa Emery as a woman trying to make sense of the world after waking from a long sleep—is fresh, simple and annihilating.—Helen Shaw