The Homecoming
There is a good deal of violence against women described in Nobel Laureate(!) Harold Pinter’s sour, seething The Homecoming, much of it in friendly, conversational tones by canny Lenny, as he chats up his older brother Teddy’s wife. (Teddy’s the one doing the titular homecoming; for the past nine years, he’s been as far from London’s workaday West End as possible — Dad may have followed Grandpa into the butcher business, but Ted’s left that fleshy world behind for the airy realms of philosophy and academy.) But the violence we get to see? That’s done to the men, both then and now. Lenny may be a monster, Teddy may be a ghost, and younger brother Joey may be a dumb brute, but as Old Man Max declares, his sons learned everything they know about morality at their mother’s knee —Max’s dear, departed “slut bitch of a wife.” Not for nothing do the only memories of actual physical affection involve, often uncomfortably, father and sons. Not for nothing does the play’s opening include Max’s fond recollection of his best friend Mac, who always had a kind word for Max’s missus. Observations like these (such as they are), are not likely to occur during the actual performance, however, as its cavalcade of conflicts, hairpin turns of emotion, adventures in absurd humor, and barrage of self-serving stories — amounting to a tragedy masquerading as a history — are likely to prove a bit dizzying. Perhaps calculatedly so. Richard Baird’s Lenny is apt to attract the most attention, if only because fear is perhaps first among feelings, but Frank Corrado’s Max, more riveting than attractive, still makes it clear that the story here is about him. And despite that emotional black hole at the center of things, most everyone gets their moment in the sun, even and perhaps especially Melanie Lora as Ruth, the new arrival who understands the old ways. An unsettling, gripping, impressive affair.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, March 27, 2022
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Wednesdays, 7pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 2pm & 8pm |