Even More Theatre

For longtime Hamilton theatre audiences, the upcoming production of Harold Pinter’s psychological thriller, OLD TIMES at the Staircase Studio Theatre represents far more than simply another revival of a modern classic. It is also the long-awaited return of director, and Spectator writer Gary Smith to the rehearsal hall, guiding his first theatrical production since retiring from his decades-long career as one of Hamilton’s most respected arts journalists and critics.

Presented by Frid Pro Quo, this new staging of Harold Pinter’s enigmatic 1971 drama reunites Smith with material he first directed more than thirty years ago for the Hamilton Players’ Guild, when the company was still performing at Sir John A. MacDonald Secondary School. That November 1993 production featured Kitty Varley, Bill Wade, and Sara Cymbalisty, and was praised at the time by The Hamilton Spectator as “a quality, classy show” that captured both the comedy and menace buried within Pinter’s elusive script.

Now, in 2026, Smith returns to the same play with a new cast and a very different theatrical landscape around him. This new production stars Willard Boudreau as Deeley, Moe Dwyer as Anna, and producer Dia Gupta Frid herself as Kate. The intimate confines of the Staircase Studio Theatre should prove particularly well suited to Pinter’s unsettling psychological drama, a play built almost entirely on pauses, memory, implication, and the shifting power dynamics between three people trapped in a room together.

OLD TIMES begins simply enough. Deeley and his wife Kate welcome Anna, a woman Kate has not seen in more than twenty years, into their isolated farmhouse by the sea. What begins as polite reminiscence gradually transforms into something far stranger and more unsettling. Memories become contradictory. Stories begin to overlap and conflict. The past itself becomes unstable. As Deeley and Anna compete to define their shared history with Kate, the audience is left questioning whether any of what they describe truly happened at all.

Pinter himself famously resisted explaining his own plays. “That is what happened,” he once remarked. “This is what they said. That is what they did.” Yet audiences and scholars have spent decades attempting to decode OLD TIMES and its haunting ambiguities.

The play remains one of Pinter’s most celebrated examinations of memory, desire, and personal territory. Characters attempt to possess one another through language itself. A remembered evening, a song lyric, or a casual anecdote can suddenly become a weapon. Beneath the civilized conversation lurks a quiet but relentless emotional battle.

That sense of psychological uncertainty feels particularly contemporary in 2026, in an era increasingly shaped by competing narratives, subjective truths, and conflicting versions of reality. It is perhaps unsurprising that Pinter’s work has recently enjoyed renewed attention. Pinter remains popular; Hamilton audiences saw a revival of his two hander, THE LOVER a few months ago, while Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre presented OLD TIMES in August of last year. Rather than feeling dated, Pinter’s plays seem to resonate more sharply with modern audiences than ever before.

For producer Dia Gupta Frid, the production also reflects the philosophy behind her newly established company, Frid Pro Quo. Founded in 2025, the company was created as a collaborative artistic venture allowing theatre artists to stage projects they have long wanted to explore, free from commercial pressures.

Gupta Frid herself brings decades of theatrical experience to the project. Born in Mumbai and raised in Calcutta before training in Canada, she has spent more than forty years working as an actor, director, educator, and producer. Her extensive teaching career has included work with Sheridan College, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canadian Indigenous Theatre, and numerous arts organizations across Southern Ontario. Many local audiences will also know her through Fanfare Productions and the long-running seasonal musical MR. SCROOGE, as well as through her work with FridKIDS and numerous international collaborations developed during the pandemic years.

At just 75 minutes without intermission, OLD TIMES promises a concentrated and intimate theatrical experience. Pinter’s language demands careful listening, but the rewards can be considerable. The play invites audiences not to solve a mystery, but to sit inside uncertainty itself.

And for Hamilton theatre audiences, the production also offers something else: the chance to see Gary Smith once again doing what he has spent much of his life championing in others. Making theatre. I am looking forward to seeing the production in the intimate setting of the Staircase Studio.

EVEN MORE THEATRE