Pinter’s ‘The Homecoming’

Press, 22 September 1980, Page 15

Pinter’s ‘The Homecoming’

A totally unexpected twist in the plot results in a strange climax in Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming,” a powerful adaptation of the successful stage production, screening on Network Two this evening. The supreme example of the essential ambiguity of Harold Pinter’s work, “The Homecoming” deals with events in the life of a, bachelor Cockney family disrupted by the return of the eldest son and his wife from America. The house in which they live in a rundown section of London is a veritable fortress against outside influences; its oppressive atmosphere is one of constant warfare inside a claustrophobically tight-knit : family. Carping, insults, and recriminations are the daily routine in the strange bachelor '

i household, and the charac- ! ters, played by Cyril Cusack, lan Holm, Michael Jayston, Vivien Merchant, Terence Rigby, and Paul Rogers, become more and more bizarre as tension and drama build to an almost unbearable level before the characters begin cracking.

While critics look for obscure meanings in the story Pinter admits its deliberate ambiguity and says simply, “It’s about love.” The director, Peter Hall, adds, “All kinds of love, not just the love between man and woman. It’s jungle warfare in the family; love is poison, love is destraction.” One of the most outstanding playwrights of the contemporary theatre, Harold Pinter adapted his play for the screen.

Starting out as an actor, Pinter worked as a playwright in his spare time. The first of his plays to be

staged was “The Birthday Party,” produced in London in 1958. Among Pinter’s subsequent plays are “The Caretaker." “the Collection,” “The Lover,” “The Dumb Waiter,” “Landscape,” ‘The

•jTea Party,” “Exiles,’ and i “Old Times.” Born in the Hackney area ; of London, Pinter used the ’ location of his birth as the ' setting of “The Home- : coming.”