The Birthday Party
By Harold Pinter
Directed by Richard Jones
ULTZ set and costume design
Deborah Warner Season
Bath Ustinov Studio
Saturday 17th August 2024, 14.30
CAST
Jane Horrocks – Meg
John Marquez – Goldberg
Caolan Byrne – McCann
Carla Harrison-Hodge – Lulu
Sam Swainsbury – Stanley
Nicholas Tennant – Petey
No Harold Pinter for ages, and now this is the third we’ve seen in 2024.
See also: The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter, 2018 production, directed by Ian Rickson, (Toby Jones, Stephen Mangan, Zoe Wanamaker)
The Birthday Party flopped on first production, then was re-evaluated after The Caretaker.
In brief, Meg and Petey run a boarding house in Brighton, except they only have one guest, Stanley who arrived a year earlier. Meg treats him like the son she never had, with a touch of Oedipal interest. She gets on his nerves. He explodes into anger and teases her cruelly. We are very aware that he can become violent very suddenly, and it’s a plus of this production that he gives it full energy when he does.
We know little about him. He wears pyjamas all day, was a pianist or at least could play the piano well, is a fantasist, and briefly mentions inheriting money a year ago so doesn’t need to seek work. This is an important line and wasn’t emphasised sufficiently here, I thought.
Petey, a deck chair attendant, has met two men on the beach. They have asked if they can stay a couple of nights. They turn up, Goldberg who is Jewish, and McCann who is Irish. Goldberg switches names in the stories he tells … Nat, Simon, Simmy, Benny. They appear to be a gangster and a hit man.
Meg has decided from nowhere that it’s Stanley’s birthday, and they suggest a party. Lulu, a neighbour will be invited. Lulu has delivered Stanley’s present earlier. It is a drum, he opens the parcel and starts playing it.
Goldberg and McCann bully and terrify Stanley in a long scene, based around a seemingly innocuous request for Stanley to sit, which he declines to do.
McCann has been out for whisky carefully selecting four Scotch, and one Irish (so whiskEy).
They drink, games commence, and Lulu is attracted to Goldberg.
The lights go out. After stumbling about in the dark, according to the text, we find Stanley has Lulu spreadeagled on the table. Or here is holding in her arms as if he were King Kong.
In the final scene, Goldberg and McCann prepare to depart. Lulu accuses Goldberg of using her. John Marquez and Caolan Byrne excel at exuding threat. The part of Marquez is written so that he speaks calmly and courteously which is more terrifying as we can feel the bottled up threat. Caolan Byrne’s McCann is equally terrifying, while appearing terrified of Goldberg. Pinter knew his London gangsters, I suspect. They always had strong media connections.
They go up and collect Stanley who appears catatonic, and is now in a suit and tie like theirs. They lead him away.
The 2018 production was about the best Pinter I’ve seen, with Toby Jones as Stanley, Zoe Wanamaker as Meg and Stephen Mangan as Goldberg. I shouldn’t compare, but other reviews have. As I mention in that review, Pinter is veering towards Waiting for Godot, in that the banality of the exchanges is hovering close to absurd theatre rather than plain realistic banality. The 2018 production went for an ultra-realistic detailed set design and they made the dialogue seem credible.
Richard Jones has gone for the full Beckett here, and opted to play up that aspect. The set is plain brown. All the same, doors, walls, the lot.
This is the most accurate coulour rendition too
One issue with this comparison is that the Harold Pinter Theatre is many times larger than the Ustinov, which impacts on the budget for a set. On the other hand, we have seen several very realistic modern sets at the Ustinov, so the bare minimum set looks like a choice.
Oddly, in all the production photos except the one above, the back wall looks lighter, a different colour. Did they later decide to have it all brown, or is it a lighting effect? Then in the photos the window frame is blue. It was white when we saw it.
The suits are brown. Meg and Petey are in beige until the party when Meg dresses in lemon and Lulu in shocking pink.
There’s the “window” delineated by tatty white tape facing the audience. It can be raised and lowered. It deliberately does not look realistic. The Pinteresque pauses are held a little too long. Having seen Jane Horrocks in a Beckett play, directed by Richard Jones, something carries over. She never seems a real person who is somewhat mentally challenged (or as my mum used to say ‘bomb happy.’). She seems like a Beckett role, played extremely well too, but also weird and unsettling. That spills over, so it all feels like that. Stanley is way angrier than normal too. The music between acts was jangling abant garde to add to my overall impression.
The acting is very powerful from everyone. No question. In the Ustinov, in Row D you really are just like being across a room from them and the effect is visceral.
It’s a major play. The acting quality reflected that. I didn’t like the set, the costumes, or the “too Beckett” directing style of it. The 2018 production won in every department.
***
GETTING TO BATH
Easy by train, or from the East, West or North. Yet again, a closed A36 road until Spring 2025 means long diversions to get there from the South. i.e. Us. We have the Winter / 2025 brochure but won’t book anything else new till the road re-opens. I think this is the third time, and also the longest.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
4 star
Mark Lawson, The Guardian ****
Cheryl Markosky, Broadway World ****
Mike Whitton, Stage Talk ****
3 star
Dfiza Benson, The Telegraph ***
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ***
Kris Hallet, What’s On Stage ***
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
HAROLD PINTER
The Lover / The Collection by Harold Pinter, Bath Ustinov, 2024
The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter, West End 2018
The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter, Bath Ustinov 2024
No Man’s Land, by Harold Pinter, 2016 with Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart
The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter, Old Vic, 2016
The Caretaker by Harold Pinter, Chichester Minerva, 2024
The Homecoming by Harold Pinter, Trafalgar Studios
The Hot House by Harold Pinter, Trafalgar Studios
Accident (film) 1967
RICHARD JONES
Endgame / Rough for Theatre II by Samuel Beckett, Old Vic, 2020
JANE HORROCKS
Endgame / Rough for Theatre II by Samuel Beckett, Old Vic, 2020
JOHN MARQUEZ
Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols, Grandage Season 2012
Opening Night, West End, 2024
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2012
NICHOLAS TENNANT
The Duchess of Malfi, RSC 2018
All’s Well That Ends Well RSC 2013
SAM SWAINSBURY
Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols, Grandage Season 2012
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2012
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Grandage Season 2013
Peter Viney's Blog 
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