Trafalgar Studios,London
Harold Pinter’s study of power and sex has lost none of its ferocityFor all the difference in idiom, you can see echoes of Ibsen in the ferocious power-and-sex play of The Homecoming. It even contains the same drink-as-sex metaphor. Harold Pinter’s 1965 drama appears weirder, or more frightening and more realistic with every year that passes. The crucial word seems to me to be meat. It is no accident that the bullying father of an all-male family is a retired butcher. He and his three sons treat the one woman who arrives as a piece of flesh. Soutra Gilmour’s design underlines the point,enclosing the men’s frowsy sitting room in a red steel frame like rigid scarlet veins. Director Jamie Lloyd stresses it, making a play that is a mighty simmerer preserve coming to the boil. Each crisis is spelled out, and with floods of red light,bursts of music, characters frozen or quivering in their bad moments.
It is no accident that the bullying father of an all-male family is a retired butcherContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com