The Homecoming

The HSU production of The Homecoming is notable for the clarity of the acting. Every word is clear, and in this play (as in Pinter generally) every word matters. That's despite the English accents, which on the whole are good, or good enough.

The story is deceptively simple: thirty-something Teddy, now a philosophy professor at an American college, returns to his working class London family home with his early-30s wife, Ruth, where she meets his father, Max, and his brothers, Lenny and Joey, and his uncle, Sam. And let the subtext begin, and the darkness be unleashed.

Anthony De Page as Sam and Brandon McDaniel as Joey seem to have an attitude in mind, and play it fully. So in a way does Emily Ruebl as Ruth, though the text makes her character more mysterious. Colin Trevino-Odell is impressively subtle as Teddy. Arnold Waddell plays Max the straightest of all, letting his contradictions emerge from what he says and does. Jabari Morgan plays the key character of Lenny with a disarming combination of languid charm and menace. He also has the best voice and the best accent--it sounded to me a lot like Ian Holm in the original production, as preserved in the American Film Theatre DVD.

The actors also played it straight in that production, directed by Peter Hall, that began in London and conquered Broadway, earning multiple Tony Awards. Personally I'd like to see it played more sharply, with characters getting in each other's faces. Seeing this play for the first time since college, I noted the importance of Max, which I felt when reading the play. His speeches are full of such blatant contradictions and outrageous bullshit, as when he describes a dress he would buy for his wife with language lifted from fashion advertising that no actual person would use. I'd love to see Patrick Stewart play that role.

The Studio Theatre does offer an intimacy that other HSU venues don't, as does the three-quarter round staging. Unfortunately I sat in the worst spot, especially to see much of Jabari Morgan. I did hear him, though, and that was reason enough to attend this play. I admired his playing of Othello a few years ago--it's still the best single performance I've seen hereabouts in a Shakespeare play. Here he was playing a brother and son in a white family, and I wondered how the production would handle this. They essentially ignored the racial difference completely, and played it in "color blind casting" mode. And it worked--mostly because Jabari Morgan made it work. Maybe it was the accents that made everyone equally "foreign" to our ears, or maybe it was simply that he created a character that simply belonged within the world of the play.

With an assured pace on opening night (along with a few more Pinter pauses that director Heckel found), and with its transparency and clarity, this production fairly represents Pinter's play, and therefore is worth seeing. As for what it all means, let the debates begin (I discuss some elements of interpretation here and generally in other posts at HSU Stage & Screen.

In Memoriam 2008

Harold Pinter (center) and Eartha Kitt(top left) were the most recent theatre artists who passed away in 2008. They are, top l to r: dancer Cyd Charisse (before Hollywood she was in the Ballet Ruse), musical theatre star Eartha Kitt, Robert Mulligan, film director of To Kill A Mockingbird, actor Mel Ferrer. Playwright, director and actor Harold Pinter (center). Bottom row: actor and director Paul Newman in his stage role as the Stage Manager in Our Town, director Anthony Minghella, playwright Simon Gray (Otherwise Engaged, Butley) and actor Paul Scofield, famous from films but whose stage Lear was legendary. Click collage to make it real big. Here's the Guardian's account of Pinter's memorial service.

Alot of Krapp

top: Samuel Beckett in London in 1983. bottom:
Harold Pinter playing in Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape
in London in the late 90s.

The TV Stage

Harold Pinter on Charlie Rose

The TV Stage

Pinter and Misha on Charlie Rose

On the Charlie Rose Show site, you can see his interviews broadcast Thursday and Friday with playwright and 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature Laureate Harold Pinter, and legendary dancer Mikhail Baryishnikov. The Pinter interview contains some of Charlie at his worst--taking it upon himself to defend the honor of the U.S. against Pinter's analysis of war and imperialism, and not only badgering him but giving us way more Charlie than we need in what is likely to be one of the last lengthy TV interviews Pinter will do. Still, Pinter didn't lose his composure or seem offended--he even seemed to be enjoying himself-- so maybe their relationship made this an expected encounter. The rest of the program is quite good but I still could have done with more Pinter, more theatre talk and less hectoring from CR.

Pinter provided a few peeks into how he approaches the process of writing and doing theatre. David Mamet says that Pinter and Beckett brought poetry back to the theatre, but Pinter said he valued producing exciting theatre. In responding to questions about his tremendous influence on writing for the stage, he talked about the writers who excited and influenced him. He could see their singular visions, but not his own; writing is doing. "The only thing I can really say about my work," he told Charlie," is that it makes me laugh." His tactic is to get a laugh, and then shut it up.

The interview was done in December, as Pinter finished his run starring in his friend Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. There was no video from that performance, but I hope it was recorded. Not only is it likely to be a superior performance with great insight into the play, but Pinter's last stage appearance. At age 76 and weakened by cancer, he said several times that he's written his last play, though he still writes poetry. For all his dour themes and politics, he seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed his writing life, not only his more than two dozen plays but his nearly two dozen screenplays.

As for his politics, he recalls the experience of being bombed and seeing the effects of bombing during the London Blitz more than 65 years ago, when bombs were much less powerful than now. "I understood what bombing is, what bombs do," which, he said, leaders don't comprehend or won't face: the death, mutilation and destruction that results from political gestures.

The Baryishnikov interview was often the opposite of Pinter's--much more Misha than Charlie, and quite easy and good. He seems like a terrific person--very generous in his comments on others, philosophical about his own choices, but honest, and very articulate. He always struck me as a singularly civilized man. He talked about more or less backing into the movies--his first role, in The Turning Point, was supposed to involve just dancing, but bits of dialogue were added on the set, then more, then more, and he became a major character. But what he remembers is watching Shirley McLaine and Ann Bancroft act. Charlie showed a dance from another film, White Nights, with Gregory Hines. Hines was a great dancer, and kept up very well with Misha, but there were differences--Hines used his arms a lot more, which may have been style, but it also seemed that Misha didn't need to--he moved so economically, with no wasted motion, and perfect control.

He also talked about seeing every kind of movement as dance, and remembering how people move, even if he can't remember their faces or names. There were a few moments of him dancing now, at the age of 59. Despite 11 surgeries, he still has that grace and economy and perfect control. An inspiration, to be sure.