Pinteresque

PLAY REVIEW: PINTERESQUE at York Theatre Royal


One show, nine plays; a fantastically diverse display of some of Pinter’s most disturbing shorts, neatly complemented by contemporary responses by local writers.

Yesterday evening was spent in the pleasant company of the Old Bomb Theatre group with their performance of Pinteresque at York Theatre Royal. Pinter is, it cannot be denied, disturbing, and I went with mixed expectations. Several months ago in Ipswich I’d seen, and fallen in love with, the dramatic tension and poetry of “The Dumb Waiter”. But this was something very different; so many plays, so short and diverse. How could such different sketches possibly form a cohesive show?

It soon became aparrent that this format was in fact the show’s biggest strength. The four brief Pinter plays, “One for the Road”, “Victoria Station”, “Night”, and “The Black and White”, were well complemented by five locally written response plays.  This worked perfectly, enabling huge diversity of emotion, imagery and artistry. For me the structure made the performance one of the most engaging I have seen. Each play was just long enough to draw us into its world without beginning to feel artificial or constructed, or even worse tedious, as longer plays can do.  Just long enough to make an impression, just short enough to leave Pinter’s characteristic beautifully crafted curiosity and mystery lingering in our souls.

This need to know more that Pinter evokes in us was particularly noticeable in the first two of his shorts, “One for the Road” and “Victoria Station”. Just minutes into the first play we were thrown into the deep end, a vision of Pinter at his most violent and disturbing. A brutal interrogation of a man and his family left one begging for more explanation. Why the mindless violence? Interestingly this was later perfectly reflected in one of the responses, “A Good Pair Of Lungs”, exploring the mayhem of a double murder. We are confronted with such a powerful, emotive story, but the very disjointed ambiguity which contributes to its power leaves us desperate for more.

And Pinter’s “Victoria Station”, again left us unsatisfied, asking so many questions we can never answer. On the surface a taxi driver liaising with his office, but with intriguing hints of mental instability and sinister motives towards his passenger. Movingly comical and yet with carefully constructed undertones of mystery which demand explanation.

The final two were much more straightforward, although still hallmarked by the ambiguity and mystery that demarcate Pinter’s style. “The Black and White” is a simple feel-good sketch, comforting and nostalgic, and so real. Two old ladies talk over soup, such a simple play which becomes so alive, the scenario so beautifully self-contained, so touching. And then there is “Night”, a man and wife reminiscing about their first meeting. This was deeper, a commentary on the nature of relationships and memory. They remember the meeting quite differently, but over time it becomes clear that both could be correct, both memories could refer to the same event, just as both individuals are part of one whole, one relationship. A fascinating exploration of memory – how we chose what to remember and so construct our own “truths”, and of how a marriage might operate. And yet, as Pinter succinctly concludes, at the end of it all what is remembered, what happened and who remembers correctly is irrelevant. All that matters is the present, that they remain together, happy, at least on the surface, with their constructed domesticity.

However, I must admit to a preference for the second set, the contemporary responses, over Pinter’s shorts. I adore Pinter’s work, that I must make clear, but there was a freshness, a relevance to the response plays, a very different feel to the slightly worn 70s atmosphere of the first set. The contrast worked well, building an extra dimension into the intriguing format of the show. "The One that Got Away" by Helen Cadbury was the play that stood out the most for me. It was perfect in so many ways, so "Pinteresque" in its construction, as if the essence of Pinter had been lifted out of its era and brought into our modernity, into our timeframe. It was such an intelligent piece, beguiling and confident yet uncertain of itself, uncertain of its meaning, so like Pinter’s work in how so much of what is meant is never said. A refugee, from Serbia perhaps, finds a partner, a home and safety, only to have deeply buried memories re-awakened by the stabbing of a boy in their block. Cadbury presents a fascinating piece, of stories half-seen, man and woman knowing each other, being together, and yet not knowing the full story, happy to assume knowledge.

The remainder of the response plays were excellent. Some were straight-forward, simplistic even; “The Goldfinch” with its play on the sexual connotations of words, and “The Undertaker”, a cleaner speaking to the dead. “Fond Love”, though, was pleasingly complex. A commentary on a mother-daughter relationship, this piece was disturbing and challenging, ultimately defying complete understanding – an effect which only heightened the image of disconnectedness between mother and daughter.

In all “Pinteresque” was exquisite, a cleverly constructed mosaic of shorts, woven together by the air of mystery and strangeness which challenges the audience to think deeper, to seek the true meaning, a meaning which must, more often than not, remain elusive. This is, for me, the essence of Pinter. He does not say what he means, nor does he mean what he says, and he leaves us to pick up the pieces.