By David Gordon
And you thought your family reunions were fraught.
With revivals of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Gypsy” and a fantastic new play called “August: Osage County,” this Broadway season deserves very much to be subtitled “The Year of Family Dysfunction.” That means that Daniel Sullivan’s dazzling revival of Harold Pinter’s dark comedy (perhaps the darkest comedy ever written) “The Homecoming,” fits right in.
It starts off as a work that anyone with a large, somewhat disconnected family can relate to. Max (Ian McShane) is in an obvious power struggle with his son, Lenny (Raul Esparza), the middle child and his brother, Sam (Michael McKean), a popular chauffeur. Max is the head of the household and feels he remain as such. Nobody agrees. The one person Max has somewhat of a hold over is his boxer son, Joey (Gareth Saxe).
Hopefully, your family is unable to relate to the games of sexual conquest which ensue as Teddy (James Frain), the long-absent son who’s retreated to America to teach philosophy, and his minx of a wife, Ruth (Eve Best), return to the North London home in the middle of the night.
Max, upon meeting Ruth, berates Teddy for bringing a “dirty tart” into his home, not realizing that she’s his wife. But, as we learn in the second act, Max isn’t too far off. Ruth uses her sexual prowess to take control of the household, acting as the sexual-being and mother-figure they’ve been longing for since matriarch Jessie died years earlier.
Daniel Sullivan’s erotic production plays up the comic aspect of the text while maintaining Pinter’s trademarked rhythm and symbols (where silence is as much of a character as any human on stage.) The highlight of the production is Kenneth Posner’s lighting, which creates a shadowy, institutional world in which the characters live.
The actors are very good, too. McShane, known to audiences today from his role on “Deadwood,” in the 40th Anniversary of his Broadway debut, is a gripping performer who, like every other cast member, draws the audience in from the first line of dialogue. Best is completely mesmerizing as the sexually charged Ruth, and, by merely crossing and uncrossing her legs (showed off well in Jeff Goldstein’s costumes), knocks the wind right out of viewers.
Esparza, a musical theater stalwart, introduced his “restrained” persona in last season’s revival of “Company” and continues to tinker with it, turning his monotone, one-note performance of Sondheim’s character “Bobby” into the menacing, sly, overwhelmingly funny Lenny. McKean, a comic actor seen in all of the Christopher Guest movies, captures the subtleties of Sam, in what otherwise is an underwhelming role.
Frain, of “The Tudors” fame, is as demure as it comes in his Broadway debut as Teddy, the “Doctor of Philosophy.” Saxe is utterly incomprehensible as Joey and it comes off as an interesting character choice: the boxer who’s been clocked in the head too many times. It’s very much a product of the ’60s and the creakiness is as evident in the text as it is in the staircase at the center of Eugene Lee’s drab, minimalist set.
However, the themes don’t land with too much of a thud. Combining characters who are vying for sexual control over one another with the recent, rapid downfall of Eliot Spitzer over a prostitution scandal, audience members realize how Pinter’s 40-year-old play rings shockingly true.
“The Homecoming” will run through April 13 at the Cort Theatre.
Coming off of his highly acclaimed role in ‘Deadwood,’ Ian McShane plays the role of patriarch in ‘The Homecoming.’ The play by Harold Pinter highlights family dysfunction in North London and is currently playing at the Cort Theatre. (nytimes.com)