THE CARETAKER. To 1 April.
Lancaster
THE CARETAKER
by Harold Pinter
Dukes Playhouse To 1 April 2006
Tue-Thu 7.30pm Fri-Sat 8pm Mat 1 April 2.30pm
BSL Signed 1 April 8pm
Runs 2hr 25min Two intervals
TICKETS: 0845 344 0640
tickets@dukes-lancaster.org
www.dukes-lancaster.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 March
Triumphant trio in fine revival.
Famously taciturn about his plays, it would be fascinating to know what Harold Pinter thinks of the developing confidence directors and actors have in presenting them. Concentration on the ‘Pinter pause’ now seems as academic as would be a conference on the Schleswig-Holstein question. Modern productions simply get on with it, letting silence and words curl round each other. The result may be less ‘significant’, at times less comic; but there’s a gain in reality, while the struggle for possession of a room, central to The Caretaker, comes into focus.
In Ian Hastings’ fine revival of Pinter’s first success the homeless Davies is ever-eager to make a point. Colin Prokter’s soft rural burr makes him an outsider in this urban world of Luton, Sidcup and, at their centre, the London evoked through Mick’s puzzling web of bus-routes. Prokter’s head juts forward to match Davies’ quickness in seizing any situation with a comment, making for agreement or conflict according to how confident he feels at the moment. And this grey, grizzled Davies noticeably shies away from any past he hasn’t been able to invent for himself.
He’s well-matched with Alun Raglan’s stolid Aston, whose famous long speech about electro-convulsive therapy gives something away - something the opportunistic Davies exploits for his own advantage. Aston’s concentration on the short-term and immediate, the focus on mending a plug or buying a jig-saw, is echoed in Raglan’s expressively unresponding face.
By the end, his back’s turned to Davies as he looks out of the window at the material for the shed he claims to be building. Dawn Allsopp’s design rightly shows this in a corner, away from the junk-filled, in-the-round stage. For it is a distant, long-term project beyond Aston’s capability, as Sidcup is beyond Davies’ reach and as the property dealings and interior decorating Aston’s brother Mick proposes are never going to happen.
Tall, assertively-voiced and pounding across the stage or looming over a Davies who near panics at his physical presence and loud loquacity, Keith Woodason’s Mick has a facial mobility contrasting his brother’s set expression, completing a finely-defined, strongly acted production.
Davies: Colin Prokter
Mick: Alun Raglan
Aston: Keith Woodason
Director: Ian Hastings
Designer: Dawn Allsopp
Lighting: Brent Lees
Sound: Julie Washington
2006-04-03 11:14:12