The most memorable thing about “Two Intimate” is the audience seating: men on one side, women on the other, as if at an Orthodox Jewish wedding. Not only does this make for a rotten first-date night, but these slight, adultery-themed one acts are the antithesis of romance.
The curtain-raiser, Harold Pinter’s 1962 “The Lover,” depicts a married couple who’ve arrived at an arrangement: The woman sees her lover in the afternoons while her husband’s at work. As we soon find out, lover and husband are one and the same — and whether he’s in a business suit or leather, this marriage is in trouble.
While we get a glimpse of Pinter’s provocative dialogue — “Did you show him the hollyhocks?” the husband leers — this sketch is mainly notable for introducing the themes of sex and power that Pinter explored more richly in later works.
“Eden,” by the Irish playwright Eugene O’Brien, is no more rewarding. The format is that familiar Irish theatrical staple of alternating monologues, making you wonder if no one actually talks to anyone else in that country.
Here, the long-married, newly slimmed-down Brenda hopes to reawaken her husband’s ardor during a booze-fueled night at a disco. Sadly, husband Billy is more interested in the nubile teenage daughter of one of their friends.
As both couples, Dan Patrick Brady and Anna Emily Wood are more effective with the Irish middle-class characters than with Pinter’s arch, stylized dialogue — and Kathy Gail MacGowan’s minimal staging does them no favors. Snippets of songs by the Led Zeppelin, Spandau Ballet and Cyndi Lauper at least give the piece some much-needed atmosphere.
Meanwhile, the separate seating, which is voluntary — at a recent performance, one woman refused to leave her date — is supposed to bring home the point that men and women see things differently. In this case, it’s likely both sexes will agree these plays don’t work.