The Caretaker

Harold Pinter’s plays are multi-faceted; his characters multi-dimensional. Getting inside them, even before putting them on the stage, requires insightful study of the script and the complexities and tensions it reveals between the characters. Director and cast need to work closely together in this process, melding ideas that arise with the director’s vision – and the original intention of the playwright.

In this production, Alex Bryant-Smith and Nicholas Papademetriou and their cast have done just this. They have been true to Pinter’s original setting and stage directions. They have researched and developed his intricate characters and their personality traits – then depicted their strange relationships in a production that, though set in the 1950s, and absurdist in style, resonates strangely with the modern world where homelessness, exclusivity, bullying and menace have become disturbingly prevalent.

Stephanie Howe’s set creates the atmosphere of squalid loneliness in which the play is set. A tottering wall of over two hundred cardboard boxes sitting end on end rises from the stage. A doorway leads off to a dark landing. A ragged cloth hangs in the only window. A bucket is suspended ominously from above. Two iron beds and a chair are surrounded by a collection of household paraphernalia – a push lawnmower, a kerosene stove, a vacuum cleaner; a toaster, footstools, rugs, a shopping trolley, a spoked clothes horse, stacks of newspapers and books – all them intrinsic to the plot. Her costumes are of the time – and enhance the three disparate characters that inhabit the set.

Lighting (Sophie Pekbilimli), and sound effects (Glenn Braithwaite) that seem to echo through an empty pipe, add an atmosphere that is just a little threatening, definitely a little strange. This is confirmed by the opening scene where Mick (Alex Bryant-Smith) sits, staring silently and aggressively, then exits abruptly – and does not re-appear until much later. Such is theatre of the absurd.

The second scene introduces two of Pinter’s enduring characters, garrulous vagrant Mac Davies, and shy, slow thinking Aston.

Nicholas Papademetriou is outstanding as Davies. Convincingly dirty and dishevelled, even down to holey socks and torn trousers, Papademetriou creates a Davies that has run the gauntlet of living rough and trusts no one. He is suspiciously watchful, continually alert, but cleverly perpetuates an air of confused bewilderment as he shuffles in open sandals, constantly sniffing, rubbing his nose, scratching his head, rolling his eyes, repeating phrases, stumbling over words. Davies is an opportunist, prone to deception, and Papademetriou plays him with convincing cunning.

Poor Aston, kind and easily deceived, is played with unassuming gentleness by Yalin Ozucelik. He creates an Aston who, quiet and self-effacing, ushers Davies into his home and unwittingly falls prey to his deceits and demands. Ozucelik finds the innate sadness and lethargy in this character, especially as, hauntingly lit, he describes in halting detail being subjected to electric shock therapy – and, in doing so, displays how vulnerable it has left him, compared to his brother Mick, who now returns to the stage.

Bryant-Smith deftly accentuates the difference in the brothers. Mick wears a leather jacket, white t-shirt and cuffed jeans; Aston a neat shirt and tie and carefully buttoned cardigan. Mick is loud, decisively confident; Aston is quietly submissive. The Mick Bryant-Smith plays is impulsive and ambitious, menacing one moment, talkative the next. He criticises Aston’s apathy, yet there is a vestige of trust between them, though they rarely communicate with each other.

Davies, however, fails to see this, and ruthlessly tries to play the brothers off against each other, adding to the tension, but at the same time, giving rise to the few comic moments that break it. The most ‘famous’ of these is ‘the bag scene’. Similar to the ‘hat scene’ in Waiting for Godot, this scene gives director and actors a chance to ‘improvise with a prop’ – and they do it well! Mid stage, the three actors play ‘pig in the middle’ with a bedraggled sports bag, relieving the tension in a piece of well-timed comedic fun.

This production of one of Pinter’s most performed plays is true to the style of his early work. The disparate characters and the social disorder that they represent emerge in terse dialogue, deftly delivered … and action that has been carefully considered, precisely directed and diligently rehearsed.

Carol Wimmer

Photographer: Sanja Vukelja