Harold Pinter Revival Tells of Home Sweet Homecoming

If there’s one thing that Columbia students don’t need to be lectured on, it’s the value of the awkward silence. Generally speaking, we’re pretty good at making awkwardness endearing and cute. Take Bwog personals or class formals, for example. OK, maybe not class formals.

But in the newest production of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, awkwardness is taken to new levels, and the cast behind the show is even better than we are at making it really work.

Pinter’s play is centered around a traditional nostos—the main character, Teddy, goes back to his London home to visit his family after years of living and working in America. But the play doesn’t quite fit into the typical Literature Humanities curriculum. When Teddy introduces his alluring wife, Ruth, to his sex-hungry father and brothers, the story begins to spin out of control as the family’s dysfunctional nature is taken to wild extremes.

This isn’t the first time that The Homecoming has graced Broadway, but it may be the first time that it’s flipped it upside down. With a star-studded cast including Ian McShane, Michael McKean, and Raúl Esparza, it’s no surprise that The Homecoming’s 40-year anniversary production has already extended its limited run.

Although the plot technically focuses on Teddy and his return home, his wife Ruth (Eve Best) and nutty brother Lenny (Esparza) offer the two most commanding performances. Esparza finds the perfect blend of sleaze and biting sarcasm to make his character equal parts hysterical and creepy, very much foiling the nature of the script as a whole and epitomizing Pinter’s signature funny-to-a-point aesthetic. His command of Pinter’s commonly used silences breathes a brilliantly awkward humor into the script that heightens the strange dynamic of the family as a whole.

Best, on the other hand, takes a bit longer to step into the spotlight, often delivering her lines in a high-pitched squeal that’s awkward in the not-so-cute kind of way. Only when her character begins to embrace her beauty and sexuality does her physical language begin to command attention in a smoldering way that Barnard and Columbia girls could only dream of. A subtle movement of her legs in Act 2, for example, is meant to provoke the imagination of Teddy’s brothers. Their heads explode, and the audience collectively goes gaga—men and women alike.

It’s a surprise that Esparza and Best steal the show from big-name actors McShane and McKean, whose performances are both chilling and moving. Even more surprising is the casting of James Frain, a Broadway virgin, for the pseudo-lead role (Teddy). Sadly, his performance falls flat against the stellar cast surrounding him, leading one to believe that he may have been cast for the sake of his oh-so-pretty face. The numbness of his character certainly adds to the shock value of the play, but Frain truly fails to find the subtle nuance and balance that Pinter so carefully injects into every one of his characters.

It is clear that director Daniel Sullivan and his technical crew have strived to preserve the intent of Pinter’s work, shying away from the reinterpretations, script adaptations, and overly artistic re-imaginations that so often characterize revivals. Everyone seems to agree that Pinter really knew what he was doing, and there’s no need to question any of his original decisions.

Along with this season’s acclaimed play, August: Osage County, The Homecoming may be doing more for the theater than satisfying audiences. For the first time in a long while, straight plays are commanding just as much attention as musicals—if not more—which have traditionally stolen the spotlight on this side of the Atlantic. Riding on the success of last year’s Coast of Utopia, these plays are reinvigorating a side of American theater that has been previously neglected and ignored.

All things considered, The Homecoming simply shouldn’t be missed. Brilliant acting and Nobel-winning playwright aside, it’s the perfect crash course on how to be a little less awkward in those inconceivably strange situations.