Christopher Walker reviews The Homecoming
Bleak house.
This is a dark, disturbing play. It inverts our most scared beliefs. Home, family, motherhood. And leaves the poor theatre goer battered and bruised.
Harold Pinter was one of the ‘Angry Young Men’ playwrights who booted the concept of ‘theatre as entertainment’ out the window in post-War Britain.
He was one of the most successful, awarded everything from a Broadway Tony to a Nobel prize.
A London Theatre is even named after him. He created a “comedy of menace.”
Pinter grew up in a Jewish family in Hackney. An unhappy childhood, he sought solace in strong relationships with other boys and his teacher at school.
Male bonding, and what we would now term ‘toxic masculinity,’ dominate his plays. His female roles are far too often usurpers who disturb the boys’ games.
This is certainly true of The Homecoming, now in a new production at the Young Vic.
The plot concerns a dysfunctional, indeed criminal, London family. Father Max is foul-mouthed and domineering.
He has abused his children, mentally, physically, and possibly even sexually.
Max lives with his brother Sam (Nicolas Tennant), and his sons Joey (David Angland), and Lenny (an excellent Joe Cole).
They catch the menace of the play well.
Eldest son Teddy (Robert Emms) unexpectedly returns from the States with his wife Ruth (lovely Lisa Diveney) whom he has never introduced to his family.
Can you blame him?
There’s something wrong with Ruth from the beginning.
A weakness the men see and exploit. The Homecoming is hers.
The themes of misogyny and sexual violence sit uneasily in this ‘Me too age.’
Indeed, the whole piece feels quite historic now, not least with the ritual cigar smoking by the boys.
Disturbingly, Director Matthew Dunster fills the auditorium with smoke requiring extra ushers to show you to your seats.
You might want to wear a Covid mask.
Religion, morality, indeed basic humanity, have no place here. In the sixties the play was a call for us to throw away everything we held dear.
Today, it is a bleak assessment of what has happened now we have.
https://tickets.youngvic.org/events/15249
Photo credits: Manuel Harlan