Interview: Susan Priver and Ron Bottitta of THE LOVER

Veteran director Jack Heller returns to the Odyssey Theatre to helm a visiting production of Sex, Lies and Harold Pinter, an evening of two rarely staged Pinter one-acts—both darkly comic, both unmistakably unsettling. Opening night is set for March 20, with performances continuing through April 26.

Paul Marius and Larry Eisenberg in “Party Time”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

The first Pinter one-act is Party Time in which affluent guests at a chic London gathering (John Coady, Larry Eisenberg, Michelle Ghatan, Brenda James, Isaac W. Jay, Paul Marius, Michelle McGregor, Christopher Louis Parker and Mouchette Van Helsdingen) trade gossip and brag about wealthy pursuits while, just beyond the half-open door, an unjust regime enforces “order” with brutal force.

Michelle Ghatan and Paul Marius in “Party Time”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

In the second half of the evening, the tone shifts with The Lover, featuring Susan Priver as Sarah opposite Ron Bottitta as Richard, a married couple who decides to enliven their relationship by exchanging intimate accounts of their affairs - until Pinter’s sly, bittersweet twist reveals how fragile the boundaries between fantasy, power, and desire truly are.

Ron Bottitta and Susan Priver in “The Lover”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

Director Heller shares. “Party Time exposes the casual cruelty of power and privilege with chilling precision, while The Lover seduces us with wit and playfulness before quietly pulling the rug out from under our assumptions about intimacy and control. Presented together, these two one-acts feel less like separate plays and more like a single, unnerving conversation about how people use language, sometimes charmingly, sometimes violently, to get what they want.”
 
I first spoke with Susan Priver and then Ron Bottitta about performing together in The Lover.

Ron Bottitta and Susan Priver in “The Lover”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

Susan, you’ve worked with Jack Heller on Pinter before. How has your relationship with his directing style evolved in returning to this playwright and this particular play?

I think Jack and I have a sort of unspoken language now that we've worked together so much. The Lover is probably a little more accessible to the general audience than A Slight Ache was, and the humor is a bit clearer. Somehow, Jack and I like this challenge of language—almost like a great piece of music we can play. We're both challenged to find the truth and to embody Pinter’s writing. He's not like anyone else. And yes, he's not literal in any way.
 
Have you worked with Ron Bottitta before? Which play and where?
Ron and I were in a production together of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht at the Marilyn Monroe Theater.

Ron Bottitta and Susan Priver in “The Lover”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

How were those two characters similar and/or different from Sarah and Richard in The Lover?

Lol… It was 30 years ago, so very different. I was a tough gun moll and Ron played one of the henchmen for the Chicago mob.

Sarah appears to delight in her double life, whether real or imagined. What excites you most about playing a character who manipulates fantasy as a form of intimacy?

Sarah's ability to manipulate in such an underhanded way is incredible to play. Pinter excites me because he's not like anyone else. His plays are like a great piece of music. Humorous without literally being funny. Truly challenging.
 
Pinter’s women are often enigmatic yet sharply intelligent. How do you interpret Sarah’s power within the marriage?

Just by her ability to get what she needs without literally asking for it. By engaging her partner in a game that's been going on for years. Pinter blurs the line between fantasy and mundane reality.

Ron Bottitta and Susan Priver in “The Lover”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

The Lover begins almost playfully before becoming unsettling. How do you track Sarah’s emotional journey so the tonal shift feels organic rather than forced?

By being truthful in every moment, by being present, by allowing myself to get lost in the zone of this very personal game of power and vulnerability.

Of all Pinter’s characters you have portrayed onstage, what about Sarah attracted you into accepting the role?

The overall fun of dissolving myself and embodying a character who has the power to do what she does.

Susan Priver and Ron Bottitta in “The Lover”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

And then I spoke with Ron Bottitta who portrays Sarah’s husband Richard. Ron, have you worked with director Jack Heller before? If so, on which play and where?

I’ve never had the privilege of working with Jack before.
 
What first attracted you to the role of Richard?

I thought they were offering me Richard the Third.

LOL!

The Lover hinges on a couple who blur the lines between fantasy and reality. How did you approach building Richard’s shifting power dynamics without tipping the audience off too soon to Pinter’s twist?

I invested in the belief that Richard has severe mental illness, so the question doesn’t apply.

Pinter’s dialogue is famously spare and loaded with subtext. How do you navigate the silences and pauses to reveal what Richard is really thinking?

I find the pauses very useful to buy a little time so I can remember my lines.

Ron Bottitta and Susan Priver in “The Lover”
Photo by Jeff Lorch

Are there any elements of Richard’s personality that you feel reflect your own?

My sometimes willingness to inflict pain on others — with my intellect. Being a bit of an intellectual bully. I went to an English public school and I feel like I know where that intellectual bullying and the bifurcation of intellect vs physicality arises. I saw these men every morning on my train commute when I was a kid, and when I was a teenager going to school, I would see these robot sardines packed into the commuter trains, none of them speaking, and looking as if they were on their way to a funeral. And I decided that’s not how I wanted to spend my life. I didn’t know quite what I wanted to do, but I knew I couldn’t do that.

So, against the grain, I decided to only — in a way that was termed “lazy”— I would only do things that I wanted to do. So I managed to work my life around a really energetic form of laziness. I spent some time working in an office for my father, who was in the oil business, and I absolutely hated it — these people counting off the years until retirement. They were killing themselves. They would smoke at their desks and they were just killing themselves, slowly.

Someone told me that the accountants were the craziest ones — they were all sex fiends. They were all buttoned down and they talked about numbers all the time but they were all swingers, they had other lives and they wore toupees and stuff, that kind of masking, it was not for me. Again, I’m too lazy to do that kind of masking.

Ron Bottitta in Fatherland. Photo credit: Jeff Lorch

I’ve recently seen you in Fatherland and Corktown ’39, both politically charged pieces. How does performing Pinter’s brand of “comedy of menace” compare in terms of tone and audience response?

The nasty weaponized rioters and killers in those two plays were far less violent than the character I’m now playing. I think Richard is one of those people who, when the press came to ask what the neighborhood thought of this man who’d secretly buried 18 people in his garden, they would all say he seemed such an ordinary nice guy, but then they’d take about 2 seconds and go, “No, I can see that, actually.”

Tommy McCabe, Ann Noble and Ron Bottitta in Corktown '39. Photo credit: Jeff Lorch 

Director Jack Heller describes Pinter’s work as making us laugh when we should be afraid. How do you calibrate Richard’s charm and menace to strike that balance?

I don’t. Menace and humor are the same thing.
 
Is there anything else either of you would like to add about performing as a married couple in Pinter’s The Lover?

Susan: Ron and I aren't really married. It’s been years and years since we worked together, although we've run into each other at the Odyssey doing different plays. He's a fabulous actor....so happy to work with him.
 
Ron: I first met Susan about 30 years ago, and since that time, we’ve interacted perhaps a dozen times — just like a middle-class English couple.
 
Thank you both so much!

Thank YOU!

Sex, Lies and Harold Pinter is produced by Brian Foyster and Christina Hart, presented as a visiting production at the Odyssey Theatre. The creative team includes scenic designer Joel Daavid, lighting designer Gavan Wyrick, sound designer Christopher Moscatiello, costume designer Shon LeBlanc, and properties designer Sofia Alejandra Gonzalez.