Always good to see Sam Swainsbury on stage but The Birthday Party does little to change my mind about Harold Pinter at Theatre Royal Bath
“Don’t let them tell you what to do”
Even as I try to seriously cut down the number of plays I see, in search of a better theatre/life balance, old habits die hard. I see an actor’s name who I love, I make a reflex booking, even if it is a playwright for whom I do not much care. So naturally, I went to Theatre Royal Bath to see Sam Swainsbury in Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party despite not being a fan of Pinter and cheap travel to Bath vanishingly hard to find.
Richard Jones on directorial duties in the intimacy of the Ustinov Studio helped to seal the deal, plus the realisation that I hadn’t actually seen this play before, despite being sure that I had (although I’d completely forgotten there was a Toby Jones and Zoë Wanamaker-starring production in the West End in 2018). And it played out exactly as I thought it would, Pinter’s impenetrable writing leaving me as cold as it so often has.
HIs first play, written in 1957, it is full of obsfuscation and obscurity. We’re in a seaside boarding house where concert pianist Stanley is lodging with owners Meg and Pete, when the sinister Goldberg and McCann come for a visit. But is Stanley really a concert pianist? Why does Goldberg go by three different names? Is it really anyone’s birthday? Is it evident why we should even care? For me, that last point is the killer, there’s so little to hook us in that truly engages.
Jones brings his customary boldness to the creative aesthetic, ULTZ’s set and costume design set a time and place perfectly, even if we don’t know exactly when and where, and the acting is strong and often excellent. Jane Horrocks and Nicolas Tennant pair up well as do John Marquez and Caolan Byrne, and Swainsbury makes the most of his enigmatic Stanley. I just wish it meant more to me, reflecting Pinter’s enduring legacy.
Very inspiring and so well acted. Frankly you either like Pinter or you dont and ever since I was
young I have loved his work.
Its supposed to be imprecise and vague: you have to have your own interpretation of the point of it
all. Goldberg and McCann embody terror and Stanley their victim. Petey ,although not having a clue
as to why terror is happening, realises that Stanley is the unwilling victim, but is too passive to save
him. Meg is too hopelessly inadequate to realise the danger> We can all draw our own conclusions:
perhaps this is why people often vote for the worst candidates in our society?