PERFORMANCE REVIEW: The Homecoming

The Homecoming
York Theatre Royal

I went to The Homecoming with the optimistic hope that Damien Cruden, accompanied by the team at York, would manage to convince me that Harold Pinter is not baffling and confusing but is in fact worthy of the major playwright label he has been given. I came away from the play baffled and confused.

The basic premise of the play is that Teddy brings his wife Ruth home to meet his family after spending six years in America. Still living at the family home are his father, uncle and two younger brothers as well as the ghost of his mother Jesse who is still very much present. Obviously things do not go well and, one thing I will say for the play, it is like nothing you could ever expect. However, this is not necessarily a good thing. If I can be shocked by the content now, the reactions of a 1960s audience must have been unique.

The set plays upon the image of life as a picture, with a huge gilt frame acting as the proscenium arch, and the living room walls being slanted as if in 2D perspective. Certainly an interesting concept, it is decorated in the same pastel palette of colours that seem to feature in most of Dawn Allsopp’s set designs and appears deeply ironic, underlining that what the audience see is anything but a picture of a normal family home. But, after the first act I ceased to care about any underlying cleverness and began crying out for anything obvious to grasp onto.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for the actors. In his Director’s Notes, Cruden calls the experience a ‘richly creative opportunity’. Maybe so in rehearsals, but onstage none of that is in evidence. The performances feel stilted, all becoming stuck in the same intense, dramatic gear which the friend accompanying me described simply as ‘Eastenders acting’. For me, it was personally frustrating to see Robert Pickavance, who I recently saw on superb form in Eichmann in Jerusalem - same director - give such an unimpressive performance.

Perhaps, this production hit an off note. It may be possible to stage the play without my reaction being "The best bits were when one of the actors unintentionally walked into a lamp and the bit about the cheese roll because the dialogue sped up to something approaching normal". Perhaps I am ‘missing the point’ of Pinter, and that his work is meant to be full of unanswered questions. However, I know that my group were not the only perplexed audience members. After the stunned silence of the first act, the second was only punctuated by nervous laughter and the curtain-call applause was luke-warm at best.

The Homecoming has not put me off Pinter or York Theatre Royal, I will certainly persevere with both. I am simply confused and saddened as to why a production that looked so promising, can strike such a bum note.

Jane Williamson

The Homecoming runs at York Theatre Royal until 20th June