The 6th @ Penn Theatre has a scrumptious double billing of Harold Pinter one-acts that are both evocatively erotic. Both are two-character (husband and wife) plays and both are competently acted by San Diego actors Ron Choularton and Cristina Soria.

In 1958 Pinter announced that there are no distinctions between true and false, and it would appear that he remains faithful to that statement in both of these play offerings.

The Lover speaks to the games played within the context of an aging marriage. The couple seems desperately fixated upon outwitting and surviving routine and boredom. From the very first question uttered by the husband – “Is your lover coming today?” – we know this pair is less conventional that most.

After dusting about the apartment and straightening her husband’s tie before he finishes his coffee and goes to work, Sarah nonchalantly responds to her husband’s question in the affirmative, as if he asked her about picking up milk and eggs at the market.

Husband Richard is nonplussed by her response, accustomed to her cool, even-tempered braggadocio about afternoons spent with a paramour, possibly underscoring her need for sexual gratification.

It’s a comedy of manners that ends up being a sparring match about their intimate secrets and desires. There is an ongoing, menacing, schizophrenic exchange between the two principal actors that sits right below their voiced pleasantries. Both actors handle the dialogue beautifully, allowing physical posturing sometimes to speak louder than the words themselves. At times, a pause speaks loudest of all. Robert May’s direction hits the target with an emotionally impacted bulls eye.

Part of what Pinter implies is that we often take the other spouse for granted, not bothering to work on the relationship. We accept the tedious paces of the day-to-day companionship without any thought to stimulate it with some grace, elegance, wit and even eroticism.

Sarah dresses up for her lover but greets her husband with sensible shoes and a housedress. Richard, for his part, routinely walks into the house, has a drink before dinner and then changes into PJs for a bit of reading before lights out.

Although Richard claims to visit a whore to satisfy his sexual needs, we speculate that it’s invention. In the end, Richard finally puts his reluctant foot down and demands that Sarah give up the charade of her affair, but the audience never knows if all that has transpired was simply a juicy adult game to add some spice to their dull lives.

Ashes to Ashes has Rebecca and Devlin sitting side by side in arm chairs. A siren is heard in the distance, a sound that is welcome and beautiful, exclaims Rebecca. She talks about a lover from the past, one who demanded that she kiss his tightened fist.

Devlin asks Rebecca if her legs opened when her lips met her lover’s fist. Devlin says he is compelled to ask her questions; that he needs to create an image.

As the play moves forward we are provided word pictures that paint ugly, historical atrocities of the past. Rebecca tells of a time when she witnessed a crowd of people being ushered into a sea of water with suitcases in hand. And then another time when soldiers pulled babies from the hands of screaming mothers.

Devlin ponders a reaction, not knowing if this is just a case of mental elephantiasis on Rebecca’s part.

Juxtaposed with these images of atrocity we hear snippets of normal, day-to-day conversation about visiting family members and taking an afternoon tea.

As in The Lover, we never know where fiction starts and reality ends. The drama allows you to reflect upon a past and digest it as part of your present. It may not have any immediate relevance but just the same it carries a weight that somehow impacts your present life.

This subtle, nuanced performance is close to perfection. Choularton and Soria balance their characters’ universal aggressions with personal intimacies. It gives the audience the right amount of time to digest and process images of genocide and infanticide, and make application to their own lives. The actors employed a verbal and physical language of anguish that was quite unsettling and quite commendable.

Pinter was perhaps telling us how history fits into the equation in our own lives and how current events often shape our destiny. Ashes to Ashes is a perfect marriage of the personal self and the political self and its application speaks perhaps even louder today.

Ashes to Ashes and The Lover play through April 4 at the 6th@Penn Theatre; call for reservations at (619) 688-9210. Or link to 6th@Penn’s website by going to www.gaylesbiantimes.com and clicking on this story.