NO MAN'S LAND by Harold Pinter. Lyttelton Theatre in rep. and tour
National Theatre
NO MAN'S LAND
by Harold Pinter
Lyttelton Theatre in rep, and tour
Runs 2hr One interval
TICKETS 020 7452 3000
Review Timothy Ramsden 31 December
Major play; fine direction; excellent performanceTwo Pinter plays from the early seventies, Old Times and No Man's Land, have a claim as his finest work.
At the 1975 National Theatre premiere of No Man's Land there was the shock of hearing the theatrical Sirs, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, speaking Pinter's scattered obscenities. It was provocative too, to see Richardson, with his genius for making the common seem uncommon, playing the literary lion Hirst, while Gielgud, the noblest actor of them all, took on the indigent, down-at-heel Spooner.
A smattering of highbrow obscenities is nothing in these Ravenhill and Barker days and neither Corin Redgrave nor John Wood carry their predecessors' knightly baggage. If anything, the play's all the better for it.
Redgrave's Hirst, marooned in the no man's land of his Hampstead mansion, stiffens in body and gait as the stiff ones slip down his throat. Yet he's islanded as much in time, the vodkas and whiskies helping slip him free of his moorings with the rest of his life as memories create and re-create possible selves. For all the literary lives he suggests, in his present world he commands and requests but can never enforce the assistance of his young staff, all insolence behind surface respectfulness.
Redgrave immaculately presents Hirst as death-in-life. He's partnered expertly by Wood, a rumpled figure in grey and green, the only, tiny patch of smartness his purplish bow-tie, which stands out - and fits in with Hirst's smart floor-rug.
Crumpled by life Wood's , a very sub T.S. Eliot in his own waste land, gesticulates rampantly as he seeks to establish a place for himself in Hirst's world, spouting a ludicrous CV at the least chance of a secretarial post in a new no man's land. There's no funnier example of Pinter's famous menace than Wood, eyes popping in a head that's forcing itself to nod vehement agreement while at a sharp angle to the vertical.
Among the younger generation, Danny Dyer gives Foster a tightly-limited vocal expression, while Andy de la Tour' Briggs offers full measure in one of Pinter's great London street riffs. Making the capital itself seem a no man's land, it's hilarious yet bleak. A superb moment in a great production.
Tour: 19-23 February Theatre Royal Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 26 February-2 March Oxford Playhouse, 16-20 April King's Theatre Edinburgh, 23-27 April Lyceum , Sheffield.
Hirst: Corin Redgrave
Spooner: John Wood
Foster: Danny Dyer
Briggs: Andy de la Tour
Director: Harold Pinter
Designer: Eileen Diss
Costume: Dany Everett
Lighting: Mick Hughes
Sound: Gregory Clark
2002-01-15 12:57:15