Homecoming, The

The Homecoming, perhaps Harold Pinter's funniest and most disturbing play, was recognized from its first performance in 1965, as a masterpiece. Its supercharged original London performance seemed unimprovable until the New York debut, later filmed, substituted the great Irish actor Cyril Cusack as Sam. But a recent Broadway revival was discussed as equal to that great original, so I guess it's the play that's daunting, not its productions. Its energy is hypnotizing, its surprises unending, and its wit and wisdom a treasure lode.

Stratford's production is perhaps a tad too elegant, and Jennifer Tarver's direction loses force in what seems like an inclination toward refinement.

The title, like everything else in the play, is realistically correct and charged with irony. Teddy, the eldest son, is unexpectedly coming home with a wife no one here knows about, after leaving the family a dozen years ago to become a professor of philosophy in California. Before they arrive late at night and enter unnoticed, using Teddy's old house-key, we meet the family.

They are four bickering men living together in an old, run-down house, and are filled with resentments. Max, the father, is presumably in charge and manages to turn even an expression of concern or an offer of food or assistance into bilious anger or reproof. Lenny, his older remaining son, is mean-spirited and sarcastic, and seems to be actually managing the family's fortunes. We later learn that Lenny is a very successful pimp. Joey, an impressive hunk physically, but none too bright; works in "demolition" and tries to be a boxer, though, as Max notes, Joey has not yet learned either "attack" or "defense." And Sam, Max's bachelor younger brother (at 63), drives a cab and seems resigned to Max's abuse.

Max's wife -- whom he refers to fondly as beautiful and the love of his life, and also as homely and a whore -- died some years before. So these men -- who suffer from what a friend of mine used to refer to as "backed-up semen poisoning" all need a woman in the house.

Enter Teddy and Ruth, after the men have gone to sleep. In short order, Ruth takes a walk, Teddy goes up to bed in his still-empty old room, Ruth returns, Lenny enters and tries to intimidate Ruth, who tames him easily. In one of Pinter's classic scenes in which unimportant acts take on cosmic significance, Lenny and Ruth try to get each other to drink a glass of water, and Ruth establishes easy dominance over Lenny.

When the men come down for breakfast, Ted and Ruth enter to the surprise of all but Lenny, and Max explodes that his son [whom he hasn't seen or heard of for years] has brought a "stinking whore" into the house. That too becomes an irony.

By the play's end, Ruth is ensconced as the family whore who will also work a few nights in town, Teddy is off to America and his three sons, Joey is in love with Ruth, Sam is collapsed on the floor, and Max is roaring angrily that he is not an old man. However, Brian Dennehy's Max is almost pathetically saying that like a tacit admission that Max is a sad old man. Dennehy is an accomplished actor, so I am assuming that his Max lacks the usual force and fury of the character due to direction. But the effect is to suggest that Dennehy was trying too much to be likable.