The Homecoming

by Harold Pinter 
Young Vic, London

Five men, one woman. Toxic masculinity, fiery femininity. A battle of gender, words and power. Harold Pinter's Tony Award-winning 1964 play The Homecoming not an easy watch by any means and Matthew Dunster's dark, throbbing production at The Young Vic certainly makes for a rather heavy evening. 

The title comes from the return of university academic Teddy and his wife Ruth to his north London home inhabited by his butcher father Max, chauffeur uncle Sam and younger brothers Lenny and Joey. A taciturn, working-class family, they wield words like weapons and immediately prey upon the new arrival. 

There are strong performances from the cast, particularly from Jared Harris as patriarch Max and Joe Cole as middle son Lenny, men who exert control over others both physically and emotionally as a means to make up for their own shortcomings. Much of the tension centres around Ruth, a woman clearly unhappy in marriage who over the course of the play decides to trade one life for another. Lisa Diveney's Ruth, with her pixie-cut and figure-hugging dresses, is a feline temptress who inserts herself as a mother-figure in this house of men, shamelessly flirting with the brothers and finally revealing herself to have the upper hand when she agrees to their horrific proposal of enforced prostitution subject to a strict list of demands. 

Dunster creates an oppressive atmosphere from the very outset by layering the verbal sparring with pulsating jazz, haze and clouds of smoke that keeps the audience on edge. I was however not convinced of certain overly stylised directorial choices that detracted from the clean, naturalistic flow of the text. A clock or a fallen character is framed in a spectral square of light, creating an artificial break in the pace. It's a taut, stylish production but tries a little too hard to be avant-garde. 

The Crystalwords score: 3/5