The Birthday Party
By Harold Pinter
Directed by Ian Rickson
Designed by The Quay Brothers
The Harold Pinter Theatre, London
Saturday 17th February 2018, 14.30
CAST
Toby Jones – Stanley Webber
Stephen Mangan – Goldberg
Zoe Wanamaker – Meg Boles
Pearl Mackie – Lulu
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor – McCann
Peter Wight – Petey Boles
Pinter at the Harold Pinter Theatre
Amazingly this is the 60th anniversary of the play’s launch in 1958. Harold Pinter at the Harold Pinter Theatre, with Zoe Wanamaker … who maybe should be at the Wanamaker Playhouse. Directed by Ian Rickson, who directed Jerusalem with Mark Rylance, arguably the best play of the last several decades. The cast includes Stephen Mangan, whose TV comedy Episodes is my favourite of the last decade, and Toby Jones whose The Detectorists is my favourite of the last year. Phew! The names have been dropped …
The night before was the American late 50s classic, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, highly acclaimed on its 1956 debut. The Birthday Party was derided on its 1958 London debut, but here at its 60th anniversary, the British contender is to me a far, far better play. As the programme notes, Pinter wrote it while appearing in a farce on tour, and its three act structure was heavily influenced by the whodunnits he had appeared in. However, those experiences are filtered through Waiting for Godot, which in terms of enigma and lines it resembles. I noted that some of the Goldberg / McCann dialogue in turn is a template for the almost autistic voice in Mark Mills’ novels. Pinter was an enormous influence on the concept Bernie Hartley and I developed for minimal dialogue in our Streamline English ELT series. I had inherited the school’s playscript library, and it was in our shared office. Bernie would read early Pinter aloud for inspiration. He communicated his great admiration to me. This is earliest Pinter. After the ranting monologues of Eugene O’Neill the night before, Pinter’s so real dialogue sounded even better than usual today.
The set: L to R Petey, Goldberg, Stanley, McCann
Ian Rickson has set it in the late fifties. A wise choice, though I’m not sure that early Pinter necessarily has to be glued to its era (in the way that Noel Coward has to be). However, it resonates better, and the extremely detailed peeling wallpaper set brings up the period. When I reviewed The Homecoming and The Caretaker I thought neither had stood the test of time well. However The Birthday Party does. I’m not sure why.
Like the American classics, it has a smallish cast (six) and a single location. Here the resemblance ends. It takes place in a rundown seaside guesthouse belonging to Petey (Peter Wight) and Meg (Zoe Wanamaker). Petey is a deck chair attendant. I’ve done that and admired his authentic tickets in their wooden holder. They are childless, and only have the one lodger, Stanley Webber (Toby Jones) who claims to be a concert pianist.
Meg (Zoe Wanamaker) and Stanley (Toby Jones)
They treat him as the babyfaced son they never had, though he is an unprepossessing character always clad in a pyjama jacket. Meg smothers him with unrequited affection. She has decided of her own accord that today is his birthday, and bought him a drum, delivered by their luscious neighbour, Lulu (Pearl Mackie). When he gets the gift, his playing becomes frantic.
Toby Jones as Stanley with drum
Petey has met two men on the beach, who claim they are on holiday and seeking accommodation. They turn up at the house, both in smart suits. Goldberg (Stephen Mangan) is Jewish, McCann (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) is Irish … Northern Irish here. They are a threatening presence while spouting mealy-mouthed platitudes to Meg. It seems, probably, that Stanley knows them. Incidentally, in such stellar company as Mangan, Jones and Wanamaker, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as the uptight, potentially violent McCann totally holds his own.
Goldberg (Steven Mangan), McCann (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor), Stanley (Toby Jones)
Act 2 is the birthday party itself, with Lulu along and Meg in her party frock. Menace increases, while Goldberg continually drops into sentimental and self-aggrandising anecdotes. The two way interrogation of Stanley is rapid fire, accusations stumble over each other, he has betrayed the organization says Goldberg, he has betrayed his country says McCann. McCann is made to sing at the party and starts a Fenian song, diverted to something romantic. Blind Man’s Buff becomes the dramatic centre leading to a total black out, which lifts briefly to reveal Stanley slavering and slobbering over Lulu, stretched out on the table, legs apart.
Act 3 is the next day. We are clear now that Goldberg and McCann are there to take Webber away with them. He is resigned, semi-comatose, and goes. Petey daren’t tell Meg. The end.
Stephen Mangan as Goldberg
The play has survived six decades intact. OK, it feels late 50s stylistically, but that’s no criticism. It is late 50s. The cast are brilliant throughout. Mangan, so often the cheerful lovable curly-headed chap, as in Bertie Wooster, is genuinely scary here with his slicked down Brycreemed hair. The huge smile and white teeth become menacing in the extreme. His voice sounds completely different too. When he sticks his tongue out, I was sure at first it must be a special effect, but Mangan seems to have an extraordinarily long tongue. The effect is reptilian. His name is Nat, we think, but in his childhood reminisces he becomes Shimmy, then Benny. There are so many great lines … he gave his wife a lovely funeral.
Vaughan-Lawlor is superb. So contained, stiff, at attention, smart but wired and liable to erupt at any second. When he does it’s an electric martial arts stance. Clearly he is the sidekick, anxious to be told if they’re doing the same as usual or something different. Not that we’re told. The Northern Irish accent helps.
Toby Jones as Stanley, with birthday drum
Toby Jones is a one-off. Small, chubby, babyfaced, tousled. Stanley is a fantasist, drifting into self-aggrandizing reminiscing as much as Goldberg does. He’s ready to take them on though, much as they tower over him.
Peter Wight as Petey, Zoe Wanamaker as Meg.
Zoe Wanamaker and Peter Wight bring the guest house couple to life. The play starts with her wittering repetitive banalities, desperately seeing approval in discussing cornflakes and fried bread. Petey is a man of few words, playing out his daily role, but genuinely anxious not to prick the bubble of her maternal fantasy about Stanley. How much does Petey know about the two men? We never find out.
Pearl Mackie as Lulu
Pearl Mackie is Lulu, not much of a role, as her lines just make her “desirable and vulnerable woman’ but she looks right and plays it beautifully.
The critics in 1958 could not take a play that did not dot the i’s and cross the t’s. We never learn who Goldberg and McCann represent, nor why they want to abduct Stanley. There are vague hints … he came to the guest house a year ago after he came into a small amount of money. Was he involved in criminal activity and cheated them? In Goldberg and Stanley’s tales of the past, Pinter is discussing the meaning of memory and how we recast our memories to suit our own visions of ourselves. A standard interpretation is that Stanley is the rebel, escaping conformity, and the two who appear to be gangsters represent the system, forcing Stanley into a grey suit, shirt and tie again before they whisk him off. I like enigma.
Look at the pictures. Perfect cast. Great set. Assured direction. OK, five stars for me, the first of 2018.
*****
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
5
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph *****
Jim Compton-Hall, The Upcoming *****
4
Michael Billington, The Guardian ****
Paul Taylor, The Independent ****
Christopher Hart, Sunday Times ****
Susannah Clapp, The Observer ****
Ann Treneman, The Times ****
Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard ****
Natasha Tripney The Stage ****
Sarah Crompton What’s On Stage ****
Marianka Swain, Broadway World ****
3
Quentin Letts, Daily Mail ***
Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out ***
Michael Arditti, Express, ***
Robert Gore-Langton, Mail on Sunday, ***
Nick Wells, Radio Times ***
2
Neil Norman, The Express, **
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
PLAYS BY HAROLD PINTER
No Man’s Land, by Harold Pinter, 2016 with Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart
The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter, Old Vic, 2016
The Homecoming by Harold Pinter, Trafalgar Studios
The Hot House by Harold Pinter, Trafalgar Studios
IAN RICKSON, Director
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, London 2011
Mojo by Jez Butterworth, West End
Hamlet, Young Vic, 2011
STEPHEN MANGAN
Birthday, by Joe Penhall, Royal Court, 2012 (Ed)
Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, Brighton (pre-London) 2013
Rules for Living by Sam Holcoft, Dorfman, National Theatre 2015
TOBY JONES
Dad’s Army, 2016 (FILM)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (FILM) (2011)
ZOE WANAMAKER
All On Her Own / Harlequinade, Kenneth Branagh Company
PETER WIGHT
Much Ado About Nothing, Old Vic 2013 (Dogberry)
