Old Times indeed. In 1971, Peter Hall directed the world premiere of this play in London and later on Broadway and in Vienna. The published text is dedicated to him. Now, after 35 years, the knighted Sir Peter returns to the work of the award-laden Nobel-prizewinning Harold Pinter (knighthood declined), to be seen at the Playhouse all this week.

The author has made no public comment on the revival, but it is safe to presume he approves his old friend's work, including the unexpected visual effect that greets us, of a dazzling blue Monet-style sea and skyscape of shimmering ripples. The picture rolls back to the sound of crashing waves, and we are in the sparsely furnished home of Deeley, Kate, his wife of 20 years, and their visitor Anna. There are two sofas and three characters. In Act II, there are two beds and three characters.

All is set for an elaborate game of chess, or of military manoeuvres for control over Kate by Deeley, her husband and current home-sharer, and Anna who claims long friendship, and earlier years of home-sharing as young girls in London. The weapons are memories, true, invented, shared, conflicting, refused or accepted. Those shimmering ripples become, in Anna's account, a disturbing symbol of hidden depths "down through every particle of water down to the river bed".

Anna, first seen as a sharp black silhouette, is all elegant seduction in her shiny 1970s nylons, effusively reminding Kate of their time together in a rhapsody on London life, later more pressing and plausible in her advances. Susannah Harker looks perfect, but should speak up more. Neil Pearson's Deeley, by turns harshly interrogating or making uneasy small talk, is a baffled prey to his memories. And Kate? Janie Dee, in white casual garments (house gown in Act I, bathrobe in Act II) in total contrast to Anna, is the still centre of their battle, remote, unresponsive until her final outburst.

So what does link them? Memories overlap. Did they see Odd Man Out separately, together, or never? Did Deeley meet Anna in the Wayfarers Tavern and look up her skirt? Language links them, and there Pinter is a master. Lest', gaze', crass' all become counters to mark off time. Strangely, too, Pinter is content to borrow the nostalgic, sentimental but sophisticated popular lyrics of the day to define the battle lines - "They can't take that away from me", for example. I did wonder though, whether the weight given to the actor Robert Newton would really mean much to today's audience.

"I do hate the 'becauses' of drama," said Pinter. So don't go looking for explanations or answers. Just remember those ripples and the crashing waves.

Old Times continues at the Oxford Playhouse until tomorrow. Box office tel: 01865 305306 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).