This asylum runs amok

Harold Pinter wrote “The Hothouse” in the 1950s, then buried it in a drawer before resurrecting it in 1980. During the interim, what Pinter intended as a fantasy became oddly timely. “Reality has overtaken it,” he commented at the time.

“The Hothouse,” set in a government-run mental asylum, touches upon themes of bureaucratic incompetence, governmental overreach and endemic institutional corruption.

Although certainly one of Pinter’s funniest plays, “The Hothouse,” presented by Antaeus Theatre Company at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, shows signs of youthful indiscipline, especially in the messy second act, which collapses into a cursory ending at odds with Pinter’s signature inaccessibility.

But the play is an actors’ showcase, and Antaeus is rich in gifted performers. As with all Antaeus productions, this one is double cast, with director Nike Doukas the sure hand at the helm, unearthing plentiful humor.

The actors are superb as the poisonous staff of this ministry-run establishment, whose Christmas festivities have been disrupted by one inmate’s mysterious death and by news that another has just given birth.

JD Cullum is particularly fine as a friendless functionary whose longing to advance in the organization allows him to brook agonizing indignities. Peter Van Norden, as the incompetent head of the asylum, is a hoot and a horror — an apt symbol in Pinter’s parable.