A production by "Theater Text and Theory II" of the The Dumb Waiter, a one-act play written in 1960 by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, was not a polished performance but did the best it could with the venue and prep time allotted to it.The play is an absurdist dark comedy that centers around two hit men-Ben (played by Amy Thompson '11) and Gus (played by Rob Orzalli '11)-sitting in a basement waiting for a call telling them their next target has arrived.

The drama sits uneasily between pure existential musing and traditional plot-focused theater. On the one hand, there is a definite (if only implied) disturbing ending in which the identity of the awaited victim is finally revealed. On the other hand, the majority of the drama involves a series of absurd conversations (during one of which Ben exclaims that the news story of a girl who killed a cat is, "almost enough to make you puke") and interactions with a mysterious upstairs neighbor (who sends down multiple, and, given the state of the basement, apparently ridiculous requests for gourmet dishes). Furthermore, the call from Ben's and Gus' boss arrives through the same "speaking tube" with which Ben spoke to the person making the food-orders, leading you to wonder whether the two are one and the same.

Both characters are morally conflicted-while meek and nervous Gus apparently recognizes this fact, seasoned hit man Ben never draws the connection between his disgust for the juvenile cat-killer and his own morbid occupation. The ambivalence concerning the genre of the play rejects the absolutism of both existentialism and traditional systematic philosophy. Pinter chooses instead a conception of life (more realistic in his opinion) that uneasily embodies both meaninglessness and meaning, rationality and absurdity.

Brian Melcher's '10 set design exceeded the other aspects of the play in artistic accomplishment, as it transformed the poorly designed Merrick Theater into an engaging and visually exciting dramatic arena and echoed the core message of the play. He combined mundane, everyday belongings, such as suitcases stacked atop wooden boxes, with absurd, out-of-place objects including a headless plastic deer on stage-right and an overturned metal mesh trash basket near the other end of the stage holding the missing deer head. Strewn all across the stage among everything else is a dizzying number of copies of the Blowfish. Overall, Melcher created an atmosphere of frantic absurdity whose hints of realism imbue it with an air of unnerving menace.

Thompson, of the comedy groups Boris' Kitchen (where she serves as both a writing coordinator and performer) and Bad Grammer, delivered the stronger performance, trailed by Orzalli, of Brandeis Theatre Company's Saturday Night and several UTC productions. His acting, though featuring flashes of genuine talent, more often exhibited a roller-coaster of rushed lines and a recurring sense that he was holding back. The latter was stressful to watch as, for his sake and the sake of an enjoyable performance, one wished he would just let himself go. Some of this may be the fault of the director, Hannah Kaplan '10, who, though an excellent stage manager, has limited directorial experience. On the whole, however, the voice of the playwright and the message of the play filter through. If nothing else, this should inspire the audience to explore the remainder of Harold Pinter's remarkable works.