Comedy of Menace: Pinter's No Man's Land

  “Listen. You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this."

He turns out the light.
BLACKOUT” 

― Harold Pinter, No Man's Land        

             

             The first time I witnessed a production of Theater of the Absurd was Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival.  Although I have great respect for the talented actors who trained me during my teenage years, I remember leaving bored, confused, and frustrated.  While it is certainly possible that my sixteen-year-old self, completely unfamiliar with Beckett, was ill-prepared to give a fair assessment to this play I had never heard of (now one of my favorites), I’m fairly certain I wasn’t the whole problem.  I distinctly remember the theater being half empty before the show was over.  As my education continued, I grew to love and understand the work of authors such as Beckett, Albee, and Pinter, but I still believed that, without adequate preparation, it was difficult for mainstream audiences to enjoy productions of these plays.  The current production of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, directed by Sean Mathias, proved me wrong.  The production, which is running in rep with Beckett’s classic Waiting for Godot, demonstrates how a strong production can make even the most difficult texts accessible and powerful for large numbers of people.  After all, these plays are classics for a reason.

Hirst informs Spooner that he slept with his late wife

            The difficult-to-define term comedy of menace, used to describe Pinter’s unique style, came into clear focus as I watched this production.  The failure of human beings to communicate with each other, the interplay between sex and violence, and the blurred lines between truth and deception became humorous in their absurdity.  I found myself laughing in order to avoid discomfort, exactly what Pinter would have wanted.  No Man’s Land tells the story of two old men, Spooner and Hirst, who apparently meet at a bar and go back to Hirst’s mansion for drinks.  Spooner is a self-proclaimed poet and Hirst is a wealthy older gentleman consumed with regret over the missed opportunities of his life.  During the first act, Hirst becomes progressively intoxicated to the point of incoherence, while Spooner makes piercing psychological insights into his companion’s psyche, giving us the impression that Spooner is the far more competent of the two of them.  In the second act, we learn that Hirst is a highly successful novelist, poet, and essayist, while Spooner is out of work.  Furthermore, they seem to have a shared history, knowing many of the same people and sharing many of the same women.  As if often the case with Pinter, it is impossible to determine the facts of the story.  Indeed, the characters themselves seem uncertain.  But this is not what is important.  Mathias’ expert direction highlights what is universal in these people: their frustrations, anger, and confusion.  As my friend, who was having his first Pinter experience, observed at intermission: “I know nothing is happening, but it feels like we’re building to something huge.”

            Of course, it’s not direction alone that makes these plays work.  It takes truly skillful actors to capture the subtle humor of Pinter’s language.  It is no surprise that Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart were up for the challenge.  The X-Men costars are familiar with working together, and their deep relationship is vital to making pieces such as No Man’s Land and Godot successful.  While both plays use casts of four, they are heavily dominated by a primary relationship between two men, who I would guess hold approximately seventy-five perfect of the lines in both plays.  These are stories about the complexities of a single, troubled, human relationship and it’s links to universal relationshps. In No Man’s Land, as in Godot, the characters move between an intense connection to an intense dislike of each other in a matter of seconds.  While this may seem like a difficult switch to make convincingly, the truth is that it is vitally true to human relationships.  The two stars never forgot the realism of this aspect of their relationship, no matter how convoluted the story between them became.

            As Hirst, Stewart demonstrated incredible emotional control.  The sickly millionaire, being cared for by his son and a man who is probably his son’s lover, fought valiantly to maintain his dignity despite being so intoxicated he is unable to walk, as well as so apparently disappointed with his life that he is unable to stop drinking.  His repeated demands to “Give me the bottle” are the only hint as to what is going on in his interior, with the exception of the one line of his that is certainly true.  “There are places in my heart” he confesses, “where no living soul...has...or can ever...trespass.” Near the end of the first act, when, unable to stand, he is forced to crawl out of the room, it is as if he is crawling towards his looming death.  For this reason, it is all the more surprising when he returns, fully functional, in Act Two to take the power back from Spooner.  Although he is now able to lord his wealth and success over his rival, the image of who he was the night before remains with us, tarnishing his victory.

            McKellen’s Spooner is a perfect foil for the repressed Hirst.  Insightful and emotionally available in the first act, he gloats about his identity as a poet.  When the next act opens, we find him in a vulnerable position, having been locked in the room overnight.  When he is offered breakfast, he coyly declines at first, only to devour it in hunger.  This moment was, in my opinion, the most powerful acting moment of the play.  McKellen refrained from playing the starving man, but rather embodied the man who doesn’t want his companion to observe his hunger, but is unable to conceal it.  When Hirst enters again, he appears to recognize Spooner from his younger days.  They swap stories about wives and conquests and it becomes clear that Hirst has been a successful writer.  Their statuses are reversed.  In an incredibly moving speech, Spooner offers himself to Hirst as a personal servant, declaring his unending devotion for the privilege of being able to copy down Hirst’s dictation.

            The Broadway production of No Man’s Land was everything a Pinter play should be: taut, foreboding, sinister, and funny.  The specificity of the performances allowed for the ambiguity of the texts, leaving the audience curious but not confused:  a difficult task.  The rich relationship between the actors left me wanting to see more.  Fortunately, there is more.  I have no doubt that I will be returning to the Cort Theatre to see Waiting for Godot, and I trust that the experience will be far more satisfying that my first Beckett production.