Oh what a cast, but oh what a waste!
Pinter One/Pinter Two (Harold Pinter Theatre, London)
Verdict: Voguish relics (Pinter One: ★✩✩✩✩ ; Pinter Two: ★★★✩✩ )
Pinter. two of the most revered syllables in all of theatre. the nobel Prize-winning playwright’s surname is sometimes whispered in awe. Sometimes barked in scorn. But Harold Pinter always pulled actors of distinction.
And so it proves here, for this repertory binge of his shorter works running until February next year. We have Antony Sher, David Suchet and russell tovey, with tamsin Greig and Martin Freeman waiting in the wings for Pinters three to Seven.
Pinter One is a series of volcanic polemics, directed by Jamie Lloyd, raging at torture and political hypocrisy. in one play, Sher is an urbane sadist cruelly savouring atrocities against a persecuted minority in a subterranean dungeon. He makes your flesh creep when touching a child or a recently raped woman, but the language is oldschool posh and as an indictment of power, crude and easily dismissed.
THEN comes Ashes to Ashes, directed by Lia Williams. in what looks like an IKEA showroom a couple engage in fathomless babble Kate O’Flynn and Paapa essiedu are hypnotic — making you believe the babbling matters — but it’s too late. Large sections of the audience had already left in the interval.
THE second batch of plays, Pinter two, hails from the early Sixties when sexuality still went about in disguise. the Lover is an absurdist comedy about a staid suburban couple featuring a jolly John Macmillan and a saucy Hayley Squires. the Collection stars Suchet as a fruity old queen trying to keep a macho toyboy (russell tovey) on a short leash.
THESE are high quality Pinter productions and should not be missed by Pinter loyalists. But despite bold, voguish make-overs, the plays have grown inconsequential and dated; Pinter One because it relates to a Cold War mindset where power is brutally imposed. And Pinter two because it depends on the characters being sexually buttoned up.
I agreed with the American woman sitting next to me who was baffled that so much effort and talent had reaped so little reward.