Lisa Diveney as Ruth and Joe Cole as Lenny
Young Vic Theatre
December 2023
Photo by Dean Chalkley
075 – The Homecoming, by Harold Pinter
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It is 1965 in a house in North London lived in by a father, two of his three grown-up sons and his brother. This all-male household is a fractious one, their combative instincts unchecked without the ameliorating influence of a mother. But their long-established routines and rivalries are about to be dramatically disrupted by the unannounced arrival of the third son, who has been living in America and not been back for some years. He brings with him his wife, a woman the family did not know existed, and whose provocative presence will bring unexpected changes to all of their lives.
This is Harold Pinter’s disturbing exploration of toxic masculinity and sexual maneuvering, The Homecoming. The play’s portrait of misogyny, and even more disturbing, the apparent female complicity, was shocking at the time it was written. Nearly 60 years on the sexual politics is if anything even more difficult to watch. So what was Pinter’s purpose in presenting such a provocative piece, and how do we process it in the post Me-Too age?
As we record this episode a new production of The Homecoming is currently playing at the Young Vic theatre in London. I am delighted to be joined by the show’s director, Matthew Dunster, who can help us answer those questions about Pinter’s challenging classic.
We covered another Pinter play, Betrayal, in episode 6 of the podcast:
06 – Betrayal, by Harold Pinter.
Matthew Dunster
Matthew Dunster is a director, actor and playwright, who over the past 15 years has directed more than 50 plays, including productions at the RSC, the Royal Exchange in Manchester, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and the Globe theatre, where he was Associate Director from 2015-2017.
He has had a special relationship with Martin McDonagh, having directed three of his plays including A Very Very Very Dark Matter, Hangmen at both the Royal Court and on Broadway, and most recently The Pillowman in the West End.
Matthew is also responsible for two of the West End’s recent hits, 2:22 – A Ghost Story and Shirley Valentine starring Sheridan Smith.
Recommended Play
Matthew recommended Attempts on her Life by Martin Crimp.
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Douglas
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘gangster spectacle’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is both an exuberant and funny piece of theatre, and a chillingly topical political satire. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui. The play is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was playing in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss as the title character.
I am delighted to be joined by both the show’s translator, playwright Stephen Sharkey, and by Brecht scholar, Professor Tom Kuhn, to guide us through Brecht’s political parody.
110 – Our Town by Thornton Wilder
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Playwright Edward Albee described Thornton Wilder’s Our Town as “the greatest American play ever written.” In fact Wilder’s quintessential portrait of rural America in a bygone time has somehow transcended its iconic American setting to become a universal meditation on mortality, community, and how we live our individual lives, wherever that may be.
The play premiered on Broadway in 1938, winning Wilder the Pulitzer Prize, and it has been a staple of school, amateur and stock performance ever since. In fact, according to critic John Lahr writing in the introduction to the text of the Penguin edition, “the play is performed somewhere in the world every day.”
Howard Sherman, author of Another Day’s Begun – Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century, joins me to explore this American classic.
Michael Sheen as the Stage Manager in Our Town, Welsh National Theatre, photo by Helen Murray.
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