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2,000 hamsters can't be wrong.

08 June 2013

Pinter! In the West End! 

Thursday night we went to Trafalgar Studios to see The Hothouse by Harold Pinter. The pace was impressive and the set design well-done, definitely in line with the time period during which this play was written. Written, but not staged. Turns out Pinter didn't feel comfortable with it being set up until 21 years had passed, so the first production took place in 1979.

I had gone in there with no prejudice and no expectations other than that we were about to see a great cast in action. The marketing led me to believe this was a play starring only two people, but in these days of commercial theatre they always market whatever stars they can muster; in this case Simon Russell Beale and John Simm. Geeks will be pleased to know that out of the seven-strong cast, there were three Doctor Who guest actors and one from the Harry Potter films (and, as an added bonus just for my friend and I, we were sitting right behind no less than River Song herself). Having no knowledge of the play, I didn't know whether it was supposed to be a comedy or a drama. I soon got that question answered, when the first laughs spread across the auditorium. I would call it an uneasy comedy, though; torture is most definitely a dark subject matter to make funny, but the acting and directing were superb and the comedy timing so good that you wouldn't be able to stay straight-faced for long even if you wanted to. The sound and lighting designs were excellent; on more than one occasion did they make us jump in our seats.

Now to the tastiest morsel of the lot. During the Q&A after the show (arranged by Whatsonstage in this case, but there are going to be several Q&A sessions throughout the run), we learnt something very interesting about Pinter. Jamie Lloyd, the director, had been working with Pinter himself on a few occasions and had actually been discussing the infamous "Pinter pause" with him, about which the playwright said "bollocks to the pause". It turns out that one of his most treasured/revered/fear-inducing trademarks came to life out of necessity. When Pinter was young, he would appear in repertory theatre, and to make it easier for everyone to learn the text quickly he clearly marked pauses in the script. Basically, they're not really needed and he never meant them to be that profound, either. In the current production of The Hothouse, they've managed to cut down the running time by as much as 45 minutes, partly because of the frantic pace in many places (it does sound a bit like radio dramas from the 40s and 50s), partly because they got rid of many of the Pinter pauses. Personally, I think that information is worthy of a mention on QI, don't you?

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Posted by: Ingaroo / 10:44
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