Playhouse to present Pinter's Homecoming
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
Next up in the Youngstown Playhouse’s edgy Griffith-Adler Series is “The Homecoming,” British playwright Harold Pinter’s shocking and groundbreaking 1964 drama.
Considered Pinter’s best work, it won both a Nobel Prize and a Tony Award for Best Play.
“It’s a wild ride,” said David El’Hatton, who is directing the play.
But don’t expect any life-changing revelations or deep insight into the human condition; the accolades, instead, stem from Pinter’s mastery of his craft.
“The writing is so crisp, you can’t wait to hear what’s next,” said El’Hatton. “It goes from absurd to outrageous to ‘I can’t believe that just happened.’ ... It’s Pinter at his best. It’s in the way the characters express themselves.”
The play is considered a landmark example of absurdist theater, a genre in which Pinter made his mark. It also makes effective use of the dramatic pause.
“It’s known as the Pinter-esque Pause,” said El’Hatton. “It’s what he’s known for. Pinter writes them in to his work. Someone will say two lines and then stop, and then there is silence, and the tension builds and builds. The audience begins to wonder what the character is thinking.
“It’s as much about what’s not being said as what is,” he continued. “More is said in those 10 seconds of silence than in a whole paragraph of [Aaron] Sorkin dialog.”
The two-act play, which will be staged in the intimate Moyer Room, takes place entirely in the living room of a working-class family’s London home.
Teddy (played by Matt White), a professor in the United States, has returned home to visit his family with his new wife, Ruth (Brandy Johanntges), whom they have never met.
Waiting there are Max (Tom O’Donnell), the patriarch of the family, and his brother, Sam (Tom Jones). Teddy’s brothers also are there: Joey (John Pecano) the boxer and Lenny (Chuck Kettering), a small-time pimp.
It’s not your everyday household — which the audience comes to realize in jarring fashion.
“[The play] lets you stare through the window into a family dynamic,” said El’Hatton. “We never quite know what goes on behind the closed doors of any family. It might be alarming [to outsiders], but if that’s how you were brought up, then it’s not weird to you.”
It’s not long after Teddy and Ruth arrive that the family starts exhibiting wildly inappropriate behavior toward her.
“There are things you don’t think the characters know, but they do know, and the audience finds this out as it goes,” said El’Hatton. “The audience is the last one in on the joke.”
The title reflects this slow realization.
At first it seems that “The Homecoming” refers to Teddy’s visit to his family. But by the end of the play, it’s clear that it has more to do with other characters’ return to a way of life.
El’Hatton said the play still packs a shock — and not just by mid-1960s standards. “It’s hard to believe it was written 48 years ago,” he said.