The current production of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming (directed by Daniel Sullivan) is not unlike one of those incredibly gifted children—who also happen to be not so easy to love.  Almost too wise for its own good, Pinter’s play walks a fine line between satire and realism.  Prickly and in your face, and somewhat schizophrenic, The Homecoming initially reveals a family of dyspeptic shattered men—before revealing them to be sadistically misogynistic. A daughter-in-law is “welcomed” into the household as a harlot for hire.  Is this for real?  The realism of the piece up to this point now seems called into question by the behavior of the father and the two other sons toward this young woman.  Has the fourth wall been shattered?  Are we all in on the joke?  She’s no wife, right?  She’s a strumpet the eldest son has hired—and dolled up for his family homecoming.  Isn’t that it?  And this “daughter-in-law” has no sons with the eldest son, least of all three of them.  The threesome is a symbol, right?—of the dysfunctional male trinity that eldest son Teddy has left behind. 

Okay then, so let’s regard the entire play as a symbol of the male’s innate hatred of the female—even as he needs all that she provides.  At play’s end, Pinter leaves the woman seated, three men at her feet.  Mater victorious and triumphant?  Are we to understand this configuration as the indomitability of the female, even in the face of the world’s misogyny?  Perhaps.   

As directed by Sullivan, the acting is riveting—particularly by Eve Best, who plays Ruth—and if ambiguity is a sign of good theatre, there’s no doubt that questions remain at curtain’s end.  The three women behind us, however, were unequivocal: “How can you like something so demeaning to women? It’s a shame.”

Best always,
Mark and Robert