“Catch this if you can. It is a vigorous and engrossing production with one of the best casts I have seen on a Sydney stage. “ – Veronica Hanon
4.5 /5 stars
The Caretaker is a 5-star play. It was also Harold Pinter’s first commercial success. I was not alive to see Donald Pleasance and Alan Bates in the original 1960 production, but this latest revival is probably the next best thing.
The Ensemble, it must be said, is a neat little theatre. By way of contrast, the bon vivant atmosphere in the foyer is light years away from the seedy squalor of the play. Once in your seat, even before the lights dim, you may feel the need to scratch. The set is almost too good. I thought I could smell the dampness in the dreary room, with its tired wallpaper, boxes of junk and stack of yellowing newspapers.
Director Iain Sinclair knows Pinter can be reinvented but has decided not to shove the play out of its late 1950s setting. That does not render it redundant. Not in the slightest. There were even two intervals – so delightfully old-fashioned. More importantly, Sinclair and his trio of actors make the script come alive. They nail the anxiety in the text. It is there when the characters speak to each other and when they tacitly shut their traps. It is evident in the silences between the sentences. The result is the audience cackle often when they are not chilled to the bone. And on opening night, the packed crowd was hanging on every word.
It does help that we have a coming together of talents that have absolutely gelled. The three actors perfectly inhabit Pinter’s damaged outsiders squaring off against each other in a dismal London flat.
Darren Gilshenan as Davies makes the most of a gift of a role. Outwardly he is a wreck of a man. Rescued from the wintry streets by Aston (a particularly arresting Anthony Gooley), who offers him shelter, Davies, bedraggled, tired looking and in filthy clothes, seems to have outlived his usefulness to others. Still, he is cunning as a rat (as desperate people sometimes need to be) and is ready to flip personalities to further his position. Most of the laughs emanate from Davies’s antics, and Gilshenan knows when to land a line, but he also never robs the man of his humanity.
Gooley offers a remarkable portrayal of the gentle giant and older sibling to Mick (an also impressive Henry Nixon). Aston is not the easy mark Davies supposes him to be and a man who appears to be hiding someone else inside him. In an extraordinary monologue in act two, Aston, face front to the audience, discloses his past as an involuntary patient at a mental health facility. While it is heartbreaking, we are also aware we are in the company of someone potentially very dangerous.
Mick’s capacity for violence is as apparent as his need to control everything, but Nixon also captures a man devoted to his “helpless” brother. His slick, leather-clad entrepreneur is much more than a sinister villain.
When you have such top-notch performers, the best thing the person at the helm can do is keep out of their way. This is the sensible choice Sinclair appears to have made. His fellow creatives, Veronique Bennett (set and costume) and Matt Cox (lighting), also do a first-rate job; their individual visual elements contribute immensely to the mood and atmosphere.
Catch this if you can. It is a vigorous and engrossing production with one of the best casts I have seen on a Sydney stage.
Veronica Hannon, Theatre Now
Image Credit: Prudence Upton
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