Programme Cover |
The Homecoming
Palace Theatre Watford 4 - 15 February 1969
see also Acting for Stage
Lenny - Harold Pinter
Max - John Savident
Sam - Larry Noble
Joey - Terence Rigby
Teddy - Maurice Kaufmann
Ruth - Jane Lowe
Directed by Stephen Hollis
Sets - Noel Wildsmith
Designer - Noel Wildsmith
Lighting - Ian Pygot
In his own write
by Hilary Spurling
Anyone who saw The Homecoming, directed by Peter Hall, at
the Aldwych four years ago ñ and anyone who recalls its pious gloom,
its dire and somewhat spurious menace ñ would be well advised to
make at once for Watford. For what is odd at Watford is the infectious
gaiety of Stephen Hollisí new production: a production presided
over, with engaging nonchalance, by the playwright himself as Lenny.
Mr Pinter makes an uncommonly natty pimp. And it is Lenny who, while
rattling off some few doubts on the central tenets of Christian
theism, pinpoints the playís apparent, and startling change of mood:
ëWell, look at it this way,í says Lenny to his astounded relatives,
ëhow can the unknown merit reverence?í In Mr Hallís view, of course,
it can and generally does ñ and Mr Hall has been right as often
as not. Indeed, there was the same sharp contrast between the first
and second productions of Waiting for Godot (directed respectively
by Mr Hall and Anthony Page) in London, as between the original
Homecoming and this new and niftier version. Where, treading
gingerly, Mr Hall has led the way, others have regularly followed
at a friskier pace. Because, as Lenny also says, ëIt would be ridiculous
to propose that what we know merits reverence. What we know
merits any one of a number of things, but it stands to reason that
reverence isnít one of them.í
Harold Pinter and Jane Lowe
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Which explains no doubt why this production is at
once so limpid and so extremely funny. Mr Pinterís Lenny, for instance
ñ smooth, boastful and, like all his family, inordinately fond of
hearing his own voice ñ is far less sinister than Ian Holmís formidable
thug. So that Lennyís casual recollections of actual or projected
killings bear as much or as little resemblance to reality as, say,
his fatherís grandiose memories of his friend Mac (ëWe were two
of the worst-hated men in the West End of Londoní); as his
brother Joeyís astounding sexual prowess, or his Uncle Samís heroic
exploits at the wheel of the Humber Snipe. Each is rapt, according
to the ancient laws of English comedy, in contemplation of a weirdly
transmogrified, grand and private vision of himself.
For the playís brilliance ñ and the chief pleasure of this production
is the way in which it brings out the subtle colours and flavours
of the text ñ lies precisely in this use of traditional comic techniques
to explore new territory: to dissect the sentimentality, the rhetorical
venom, the triumphant inconsequentiality of the cockney, his flair
for making capital out of sheer ignorance, for smartly abandoning
shaky ground in favour of the equally rickety, but opposite, position.
Watch Max, for instance, shift from a nostalgic idyll of domestic
bliss to quite another version ñ ëa crippled family, three bastard
sons, a slutbitch of a wifeí ñ of the same scene. The speed and
dexterity of these perpetual gear changes are breathtaking; John
Savidentís voluble and dewlapped Max is a superb performance, and
Larry Nobleís meek, sly Sam is another; Terence Rigby first created
this marvellous gormless Joey at the Aldwych; and the whole is something
no connoisseur should miss.
The Spectator, 9th February 1969
© The
Spectator
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