The Birthday Party - Review

Ustinov Studio, Bath

*****

Written by Harold Pinter

Directed by Richard Jones

Jane Horrocks, Carla Harrison-Hodge and John Marquez

One of Pinter’s earliest plays, The Birthday Party’s plot defies explanation. Written in the 1950s and set in a boarding house in an unnamed English seaside town, Meg and Petey own the establishment, Stanley is a long-term resident, Lulu is a glamorous local girl and friend of the household and then, upsetting the already fragile equilibrium, come Goldberg and McCann who throw this gentle world into complete and unsettling disarray. Imagine, if you will, a fusion of the BBC’s Fawlty Towers, ITV’s George and Mildred, with a dash of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho thrown in for good measure and even then, in all honesty, you will not be any closer to unfathoming where this story has come from, nor how it ends. But you know what? That really doesn’t matter. Pinter’s finest writing is pure Absurdism and for such writing to take flight requires a high-calibre, finely-tuned company – and it is such a troupe that Richard Jones has assembled in Bath.

Jane Horrocks is Meg and such is this actor's versatility that it is almost impossible to believe that it is Horrocks playing this apparently small-minded and delightfully dotty little landlady. Pinter’s language fuses the everyday and the mundane – and Horrocks’ interpretation of the mundanity is simply a joy to behold. Nicholas Tennant is Petey, a municipal deckchair attendant – again a character from the most ordinary slice of life, and yet when given Pinter’s dialogue, elevates the everyday into excellence.

Sam Swainsbury is Stanley, the birthday celebrant and a man with a clearly damaged background, although the cause and circumstances of whatever trauma has befallen him is never revealed. Swainsbury captures Stanley’s mental fragility in a beautifully weighted performance that has the audience crying out for him with their empathy. Carla Harrison-Hodge plays Lulu in what is one of the play’s smaller roles, but to which she delivers an enormous amount of (ultimately) damaged complexity.

Sam Swainsbury and Jane Horrocks

And then there are Goldberg and McCann, the villains of the piece, played by John Marquez and Caolan Byrne respectively. Marquez is brilliant in capturing so much of what makes Goldberg evil. Is it the predatory sleaze or the wafer-thin veneer of polished charm? Either way Marquez’s (and Byrne’s) mastery of Pinter’s quickfire interrogatory style is outstanding. And again, for both characters to slip into the Jewish or Irish-Catholic heritage of their respective youths is yet another masterclass in outstanding writing, brilliantly performed.

John Marquez, Carla Harrison-Hodge and Caolan Byrne

And for all of the characters, from Meg to McCann, Pinter makes it clear that there is so much more to them than meets the eye.

This production of The Birthday Party needs to follow Jones’ recent Machinal into a London run. A gripping, complex, troubling play that is by no means an evening of easy entertainment. It is however, flawless theatre.

Runs to 31st August

Photo credit: Foteini Christofilopoulou