Review: The Caretaker at the Liverpool Everyman

Oct 13 2009 Chester Chronicle

THE CARETAKER/Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, until October 31

REVIEW/by Peggy Woodcock

WELL, now I'm a fan. From not liking the work of playwright Harold Pinter, having just seen “The Caretaker” executed to perfection, I am won over.

In a production by the Liverpool Everyman Theatre at the Theatre, the three-strong cast gave us all the hallmarks of Pinter's work, the oddball characters, the out of kilter dialogue, the long pauses, and did it so well it was engrossing. As opposed to irritating, which has been my previous experience.

Leading the way was the veteran, consummate performer Jonathan Pryce, who nailed the leading character in all his sly seediness. In his ragbag clothes, he WAS the would-be caretaker from scruffy grey head to badly sandalled feet.

Watching him, you realised that he does truly inhabit a role. His acting went through every inch of him, every turn of the head, gesture of the hand, hunch of the shoulder. He often didn't need to speak – his body language conveyed all.

But speak he did, of course, garrulous indeed as the Welshman Davies, though, for who knows why, currently he was Jenkins. He gave the text full value, investing the words with the character of this old man, in turn wheedling and pugnacious, pathetic and obnoxious. Above all, a survivor.

So on he came into a splendidly ramshackle room, with a smartl y dressed young man who had just rescued him from a punch-up. And who, bizarrely, lived there. Though it was his brother, a pale, silent youth who had already thoroughly frightened us in a few, staring, seconds on stage, that owned the place.

Or did he? Jenkins, shoeless and on his way to Sidcup when the weather broke, cadged a bed and fancied staying. But which brother held the power? Mick, the scary one? Or his rescuer, Aston, suddenly not so normal after a chilling, deadpan account of electrotherapy?

Where did Mick sleep? Would Aston ever fix that damned plug? So questions simmered as these three went out and came in, moved around each other,.occupied the room in wandering encounters about identity, dependency, existence, survival.

There weren't any answers, of course – this was Pinter! - but it fascinated, and made us laugh and stayed with us. Well, me, anyway.

This was down to superb acting by Pryce, and by Tom Brook, as Mick, and Peter McDonald as Aston. Their timing was impeccable. Along with director Christopher Morahan, they drew out every nuance, comic, pathetic or simply odd, of the text. Great theatre.

Visit www.everymanplayhouse.com or ring 0151 709 4776 for booking details.