The Homecoming

The Homecoming, by Harold Pinter…Nobel prizewinner or the worst play ever written? We took four friends to a May 2005 production at the local theatre company, and we hated it. So, when I learned that it had won the Nobel Prize, I was taken aback. The production we saw was so pointless. I was expecting to be disturbed, but instead felt just uninterested and annoyed by the actions of the players. So, recently I picked up a copy of the play and was immediately engaged by the characters (still unsympathetic to put it mildly, but more believable), the dialogue (much wittier than in the production) and the suspense introduced by the interplay of the awful personalities and the addition of a female stranger, Ruth, into the already unstable mix.

So, the play is awful and disturbing, but it’s also very well written. The minor elements, like MacGregor and Jessie, which form a subtle undercurrent to the play’s action, are resolved in the end. The mystery of Lenny’s occupation is cleared up. The only thing that is unclear is Ruth’s behavior, but that is also the thing that makes the play more than just a dated, drawing-room type drama like “Look Back in Anger.” Maybe the play can’t be understood out of context? But, just going on my own reaction, the presence of Ruth is what gives the play suspense. It is amusing to watch the antics of these horrible, dysfunctional people on stage, but once the alien presence in the person of Ruth is introduced, I felt tense and threatened. And disturbed by her seeming to go willingly into bondage to them. It’s true that Ruth seems powerful at the end with the two remaining brothers in thrall and Max on his knees to her, but the situation seems fraught with menace. Actually, Pinter’s work has been called the ‘comedy of menace’ as seemingly simple situations turn threatening and ominous without explanation or warning.

Well, I just found out that the play was written in 1967, not that long after Osborne.  Frank Rich recalls that the play was shocking and terrifying at that time and was part of a Pinter campaign against theatrical “literal-mindedness.” Reviewing a more recent (1991) production, Rich notes that the cultural shifts that have occurred since the sixties have rendered the play much less shocking and terrifying; however, the “nastiness and (gallows) humor” still come through. The term “Pinteresque” seems to mean themes of “nameless menace, erotic fantasy, obsession and jealousy, family hatred and mental disturbance” – too right! The other Pinter trademark seems to be the famous pause, which occurs constantly (and annoyingly in our production) and seems to symbolize the gaps in our knowledge as we struggle to make sense of the onstage lives. The pauses worked in the written version. I’m not sure why nothing about this play worked for us in the production we saw; what would a good production be like? I may have to sit through it again sometime to find out.