THEATER REVIEW

Tom Titus

Playwright Harold Pinter is an acquired taste -- one which South Coast

Repertory acquired in its first season (1965) and has encouraged its

audiences to adopt ever since, a task, which may be more daunting than

mounting the play itself.

It was Pinter’s “The Birthday Party” that thrust SCR into prominence

36 years ago, and since then the company has slipped an occasional Pinter

into its repertoire, most significantly “The Caretaker,” which the

theater produced twice. On this, the occasion of the playwright’s 70th

year, SCR is offering a second helping of “The Homecoming.”

To fully appreciate a Pinter play, audiences must learn to divorce

themselves from the anticipation of such minutiae as character

development and motivation. These terms, along with normality and logic,

are not to be found in a Pinter dictionary any more than they would be in

plays by Samuel Beckett.

With “The Homecoming,” directed with ominous emphasis on impending

menace by Martin Benson, SCR offers a more fully formed production than

its original version in 1968. The play’s characters, however, are no more

likable than they were then, in some cases even less so, and certainly

just as ambiguous.

The setting may be London, but the atmosphere is pure Addams Family --

dark and foreboding with its borders ragged, as though someone had ripped

a huge piece out of the scenery. The structure isn’t the only element

that’s been irreparably damaged; its inhabitants carry even deeper scars.

Mac (W. Morgan Sheppard), the family patriarch, is a widower, aretired

butcher who still wields the meat cleaver, only verbally. He shares the

home with his meek chauffeur of a brother, Max (Richard Doyle), and two

of his three sons -- Joey (Sean House), an amateur boxer, and Lenny (Don

Harvey), a character of undetermined occupation who nevertheless dresses

up for whatever, probably illegal, work he does.

Into this contentious atmosphere comes the third son, Teddy (Nicholas

Hormann), who has managed to elevate himself into the world of academia,

and his taciturn wife Ruth (Colette Kilroy), whose sadistic nature gives

her more in common with the inhabitants than with her soft-spoken

husband.

Sheppard garrulously dominates the stage in a bravura performance,

alternately describing his late wife as a paragon and a whore, and

thoroughly enjoying the sound of his own voice. Harvey’s Lenny is an

ambiguous sort, lacing the most trivial dialogue with an undercurrent of

menace.

As the fastidious Max, Doyle skillfully underplays his character

almost to invisibility. The more earthy House presents a physical threat,

but his Joey lacks Lenny’s guile. Together, House and Harvey comprise one

threatening personage.

Hormann, ostensibly the most “normal,” actually is the strangest of

the lot. His Teddy is the achiever, the brother who is above it all, yet

he is so far above that he’s out of touch with the realism below. And

Kilroy establishes a dominating presence as his wife, an icy woman who

may be taken over by the others, but who will retain the upper hand.

James Youmans’ setting is appropriate for a production that will run

over Halloween -- grim and foreboding. Paulie Jenkins’ eerie lighting

effects complete the macabre picture.

“The Homecoming” will be a banquet for Pinterphiles, but may upset the

stomachs of those unfamiliar with the playwright, or adverse to his

works. Both factions should stand warned. This is dark, dangerous

territory.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI.

WHAT: “The Homecoming”

WHERE: South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

WHEN: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and

2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays until Nov. 18.

COST: $27-$52

PHONE: (714) 708-5555