The Birthday Party
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
City Garage Theatre
Thru July 23
RECOMMENDED
The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter’s first full length play, opened in London in May 1958. Reviews were grim. Most critics, accustomed to the kitchen sink realism of writers like Sillitoe, Braine and Osborne, were incensed and/or bewildered by the non-sequiturs, contradictions and pauses in Pinter’s language, along with the murkiness of the play’s narrative and the perceived illogic of its characters. Collectively, they savaged it. The Daily Telegraph reviewer, referring to Petey, a character employed as a deckchair attendant at the beach, wrote, “I can give him one word of cheer. He might have been a dramatic critic, condemned to sit through plays like this.”
The production folded after eight performances. Pinter reportedly was so discouraged that he talked of giving up playwriting altogether and was only dissuaded by the reassurances of his wife and the positive input of two critics — Kenneth Tynan, but in particular the Sunday Times reviewer Harold Hobson, whose rave assessment appeared only after the show had shuttered.
Hobson’s opinion —that Pinter possessed “the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London” — prevailed, of course. Hobson understood what Pinter’s 1950s era detractors missed — that The Birthday Party was not intended to be a realistic depiction of everyday life among working class Brits; instead, it was meant to relay awareness of the dark oppressive forces that lie beneath the surface of daily living. Pinter went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005, while the term “Pinteresque” became part of the language of literary criticism, used to describe works bearing the characteristics of his pioneering talent.
The Birthday Party is set in a boarding house run by a set-in-their-ways couple Meg (Peggy Flood) and Petey (Andy Kallok) Boles. Their sole boarder, Stanley (Issac Stackonis), who claims to have been a concert pianist, is a disheveled recluse, given to oversleeping and rude remarks when spoken to. But he’s doted on by Meg, who is always trying to caress him — gestures of affection he brutally fends off. She also assays currying his favor with tea and breakfasts of cornflakes and fried bread. The cornflakes and tea are scorned; the fried bread he gobbles up.
Whatever its glitches, the household routine appears to proceed to the satisfaction of all its members, until Petey announces that he’s been approached by two men in search of accommodation for a night or two. Meg is delighted – “we’re on the list” she declares — but a frightened Stanley is immediately put on his guard. It’s apparent he thinks these strangers may be after him.
And so, it appears, they are. The two are an odd sinister pair. Goldberg (Troy Dunn) the leader, is a serpentine presence, a garrulous talker with lecherous designs at first on Meg but later on her much younger neighbor, Lulu (Savannah Schakett), in attendance at a birthday party that the clueless Meg has foisted on Stanley (it’s not his birthday). McCann (Gifford Irvine), the muscle guy, is less intimidating than Goldberg — in fact he’s rather nervous — but it’s clear he’s there as an enforcer, subject to the pitiless Goldberg’s directions.
Directed by Frederique Michel at City Garage Theatre, the current staging transpires on Charles Duncombe’s eye-appealing set — neat and spare and modestly attractive, rather than cluttered and worn. There’s a sky-blue backdrop that is emblematic, perhaps, of the cheery goodness of the simple-minded Meg, oblivious to the ominous forces that are threatening her beloved Stanley. Much of the humor and pure entertainment in this production is reflected around Flood’s utterly engaging persona, a beacon amidst the baleful shadows and apocalyptic themes. Some of this radiates in Schakett’s performance as well, in an appealing comic turn as a young flirt ambushed by a predatory male.
As Petey, Kallok hews to one’s expectations of a typically taciturn Pinter character, in the end stirred from complacency out of concern for Stanley. Gifford likewise projects the shaded ambiguities of his enforcer to reflect an accessible person beneath the cryptic language. Dunn, whose character, Goldberg, drives the action, delivers a well-tailored portrait of unctuous evil, but there’s room for more gut-wrenching menace from this accomplished actor.
My central issue with this adept, well-paced production is its presentation of Stanley. From the beginning Stackonis’s hunted man is a fireball of rage, feral in each encounter. This never lets up. Missing is any thread of softness or vulnerability —making it difficult (at least for me) to empathize completely when this tale of authoritarianism run amuck arrives at its fevered catharsis.
City Garage at Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building T1, Santa Monica. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 4 pm; thru July 23. Running time: approximately two hours and 5 minutes with an intermission. https://citygarage.org
