By Steve Dinneen
Harold Pinter is not a playwright known for holding back. His studies of working class masculinity writhe with undercurrents of menace, of violence lurking beneath the skin. His sparse, other worldly works are hermetically sealed hellscapes, freudian doll houses in which he explores humanity’s basest instincts. But even in this context, The Homecoming is a nasty, jagged portrait of the male psyche.
It’s dragged kicking and screaming – often literally – to life by a cast of true heavyweights, led by the peerless Jared Harris. His Max is the ageing patriarch of a family of boys, his history of violence and manipulation only slightly dulled by his aching old bones.
It centres around the homecoming of his estranged eldest son Teddy, a working-class-boy-done-good who escaped the viper’s nest to become a university professor – now accompanied by his beautiful young wife Ruth. The introduction of a woman sends this gently simmering pot of testosterone into a ferocious boil. There is Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole as Teddy’s ne’er do well younger brother Lenny, whose every action, from offering to make a cup of tea to suggesting Ruth shack up as a prostitute, is delivered in a quietly aggressive monotone. Then there’s Joey, the baby of the troupe and a wannabe boxer who craves affection and violence in equal measure.
Ruth is the enigma at the centre of these troubled men. She is raped, she is objectified, she is placed on a pedestal and worshipped like some primeval totem of motherhood. But is she somehow complicit? There’s an uncomfortable suggestion that she’s choosing a life of abuse rather than settling down with the boring professor, and I’m not sure what to think of that.
Like the best of Pinter’s work, The Homecoming makes you laugh while you digest its message of alienation, despair and angst.
There’s a scene in which Max’s chauffeur brother Sam eats an apple in a way that rivals the scotch egg scene in The Office.
It’s also extremely strange. The set – the house where the men and boys live – isn’t one of squalid masculinity but is filled with dainty feminine touches like the dusty pink sofa.
It’s an imperfect play imperfectly staged but The Homecoming is driven home with verve and power by an excellent cast, who interpret this tale of misogyny afresh for our post MeToo world.
