Pinter Festival at A.C.T.: Don't Expect a Map When You Travel Through "No Man's Land" — a review

Human nature includes the urge to make sense of things, an urge I suspected was felt by others who loitered in the lobby of A.C.T.—A Contemporary Theatre after No Man's Land last Saturday night. We all stood in silence, heads tilted back to read a wall panel description of the play we had just seen, hoping to find in those words on the wall, if not a map to clear understanding, at least some signposts. None existed. But that did not invalidate the journey.
 

NO MAN'S LAND - Frank Corrado
              Photo: Chris Bennion

This first professional production in Seattle of No Man's Land is part of the Pinter Festival at A.C.T., honoring the English playwright Harold Pinter. I had already seen, and enjoyed, The Dumb Waiter and Celebration. I had no idea what to expect of No Man's Land. The theater's press release seemed vague and described it as "a profound (and boozy) meditation on life and death and what may or may not have taken place between the cradle and the grave."

It opens during the 1970s on a scene of two aging men, Hirst and Spooner—both of whom seem to be literary sorts—in the London home of the one named Hirst (Frank Corrado). He is apparently a wealthy man of some celebrity, although how he gained it we do not know. He is also a drunk. The room reflects Hirst's social status, as well as his own dullness and lack of personality.

It's late at night, and Hirst has invited the overly talkative, overly friendly Spooner (Randy Moore) home for more drinks after leaving a pub where they've just met. Or did they?

 

NO MAN'S LAND - Randy Moore, Peter Crook, Frank Corrado, Benjamin Harris
Photo: Chris Bennion



Hirst pours a whisky for his guest, and as he does so, he utters the play's first line: "As it is?"

Spooner cheerfully replies, "As it is, yes, please, absolutely as it is." Little did I know that I would need to accept the play "as it is" without satisfying my urge to uncover a clear message.

Just who is Spooner? Although he delivers impressively long and often humorous speeches, compared to Hirst's elegance and refinement (even as a drunk) Spooner comes across as slightly slimy, a mooch, a con man, a far less tastefully dressed hustler with dishonorable motives. And yet we feel for him because of the pathetic nature of his life. His cleverness stimulates Hirst into revealing more about himself—and the dream he keeps repeating—by nudging him with real or fabricated memories, sarcasm, and suggestion.



The two keep drinking and feeding off of each others' stories, exaggerations, imaginations, or just plain lies. Soon it seems Spooner is an old friend Hirst knew at Oxford, whose wife was one of Hirst's sexual conquests. Is any of it true? Or, are they just two lonely, pathetic men facing the end of their lives without any meaningful relationships, except with the bottle and their glorified pasts?



NO MAN'S LAND - Peter Crook
Photo: Chris Bennion



The only other characters are the insubordinate butler named Briggs (Peter Crooks), who reminded me more of thug on his best behavior, and a young man named Foster (Benjamin Harris). Both add an air of edginess, uncertainty, and possible danger. I swear that I heard Foster refer to Hirst as his father, but later he seems almost like Hirst's employee, a caregiver or handler for the old drunk. Hirst passes out repeatedly and must be fixed up to reappear before his guest Spooner the next morning, who has been locked in the room overnight by the others. 

The character of Foster adds to the confusion in a play that seems like a hundred mini-plays, moving from one speech to another without a lot of conversation. It feels like a tread mill, which could be the point; longings, circumstances, and regrets plod away in people's live and find no relief. Is anyone really listening? Do any of us truly know the person to whom we speak?

So how did No Man's Land, with its lack of much plot or any conclusions, make a crowd of people care enough to hang around afterward looking for insights? It appeals, in a dark way lightened by humor, to the secrets, yearnings, egos, vulnerabilities, and pasts we all carry inside ourselves, often as a burden.

For those of us who simply love words, it offers a symphony of eighth notes that dance on the air and keep us spellbound waiting for the final chord. It offers humor and sharp wit. The acting, and Penny Chern's directing, are superb. It makes us laugh. And it makes us squirm. Even the stage set makes the disconcerting circumstances visceral. There is only one comfortable looking chair and we wish for the actors, and the story, to settle, to allow us some relief from edginess, uncertainty, and subtle despair.



NO MAN'S LAND - Benjamin Harris
Photo: Chris Bennion

No Man's Land gets into your bloodstream and stays there. I'm no drinker, but it gave me a kind of hangover that haunted. And probably because it would not release me, after this strange play came the strange coincidence of which I also tried to make sense.

Stunned, I looked at the clock on the car's dashboard on Sunday morning and noticed that it read "10:30" once again. Twelve hours earlier, I had noticed the exact same time while in the same car, headed in the same direction (south) on the same freeway (I-5) discussing the same play (No Man's Land) with the same person (my husband). The first situation happened on the way home to Tacoma after seeing No Man's Land Saturday night. The second, on Sunday morning, occurred as we headed to the Long Beach peninsula for the Jazz & Oysters Festival.

"Is there a hidden meaning in this?" I asked myself, meaning the coincidence. But it was the same question I'd asked about the play and I had no answer. Meanwhile, we came to the place where Hwy. 101 branches off the interstate to lead to more and more branching roads, just as the complex sentences in the script of No Man's Land branched again and again, promising another elusive destination.

along Willipa Bay       photo by Candace Brown



I wanted to see the ocean, the big picture, but I had to travel through hills hidden by forest that eased into the coastal lowlands before I eventually reached the Pacific Ocean. And ultimately it reminded me of the insignificance of our individual lives when compared to its size and power.

At first impatient to arrive at the trip's conclusion, I learned something along the way; it is often best to relax, listen, stay present and aware, and appreciate, rather than analyze, the scenery.

photo by Candace Brown

No Man's Land will be presented again on Thursday, Aug. 23, at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 25, at 4 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 26, at 2 p.m. (Find complete schedule and ticket information for this and other features of the festival through this link.)

Copyright 2012 Candace J. Brown

Pinter Festival at A.C.T. Begins With Two Gems—Reviews of "The Dumb Waiter" and "Celebration"

Photo: Multiple - ACT Theatre

I took my seat at A.C.T. Theatre in Seattle and found myself transfixed by a feature of the darkened stage set below. My husband and I had come to see two one-act plays, The Dumb Waiter and Celebration, both by English dramatist Harold Pinter (1930-2008) and the mood of The Dumb Waiter pulled me in at once.

Even before the lights come up, you can see that the backdrop is a facsimile of a stained and dirty concrete block wall with a door in the middle and pipes and conduits showing—typical of a basement in a commercial building circa 1930s. In front of that sit two jail-style metal beds. Through a vent above the door, light glows from an unknown source behind the slowly turning blades of a fan. The light slices a long, angled wound through the darkened space and casts a shadow of the fan onto the floor of the stage where the shadow’s own turning blades seem to continue slicing, in unison with the others.

ACT- The Dumb Waiter - Darragh Kennan, Charles Leggett
Photo: Chris Bennion

The plays we were about to see are the first two of four presented as part of The Pinter Festival running July 20-August 26 at A.C.T- A Contemporary Theatre. We expected comedy, and we found plenty to laugh at in the verbal jousting and actions of The Dumb Waiter’s only two characters: Darragh Kennan as Gus and Charles Leggett as Ben. They sit or recline on the beds, Ben often reading the newspaper and talkative Gus often up and moving about nervously, as they wait for something. The more Gus tries to communicate with Ben, the more irritated Ben becomes, and the comical banter takes on an edge of foreboding.

ACT- The Dumb Waiter - (close up) Darragh Kennan, Charles Leggett
Photo: Chris Bennion

Meanwhile, those fan blades continue to turn. They suggest the presence of things unseen and dangerous in this dark comedy, such as whoever keeps sending messages down by way of a toy monkey in the dumb waiter. Each trip increases the terrible tension, even as this pair, so reminiscent of Abbot and Costello, make the audience laugh.



ACT- The Dumb Waiter - (pointing with monkey) Darragh Kennan, Charles Leggett
Photo: Chris Bennion

Pinter was the master of tension, uncertainty, and the struggle for control, famous for his pauses between lines. In the program for the plays, Mariel Neto—a member of the cast of Celebration—offered her favorite Pinter quote: “Below the spoken word is something known and unspoken.”

All evening we felt the power of those somethings. In The Dumb Waiter, the characters of these men and the ugly nature of their jobs (as well as the hints of danger to Gus) are revealed one disturbing hunch at a time. The messages from the dumb waiter add to the sense of frustration and confusion. In Pinter’s dialog, every word carries the double weight of its surface meaning and another, hidden, meaning. Absolutely superb acting by Kennan and Leggett add to these and captivate the audience.

ACT-Celebration (Getting into it) Anne Allgood, Julie Briskman, Frank Corrado, Randy Moore
Photo: Chris Bennion

 Celebration offers comedy of a lighter nature but still flaunts and manipulates those unspoken somethings in human relationships. In this case, we study relationships between two long-married couples. The action takes place in a restaurant where these couples (oddly, two brothers married to two sisters) have come to celebrate the wedding anniversary of the couple named Julie and Lambert, played by Julie Briskman and Frank Corrado. Their companions are Prue and Matt, played by Anne Allgood and Randy Moore.



ACT-Celebration (Gold chains and wine) Frank Corrado
Photo: Chris Bennion

Waiters keep the wine flowing as the foursome keeps consuming and revealing truths about their relationships through their words. Corrado’s generous servings of profanity are too funny and well placed to offend and Allgood’s hilarious comments and behavior could cause death by laughter. Briskman and Moore also excelled in their roles.

At a table nearby, sits another couple. Sexy former secretary Suki (Mariel Neto) confesses her behind-the-filing-cabinet adventures to Russell (Jeffrey Fracé) and soon recognizes Lambert as a past office acquaintance. Eventually all three couples end up at the same table where awkwardness combines with drunkenness in a delightful mess.

ACT-Celebration (Jump) Julie Briskman, Randy Moore, Frank Corrado, Mariel Neto, Jeffrey Fracé
Photo: Chris Bennion

But all through this play, the restaurant owner and employees weave in their own issues. Darragh Kennan, who played Gus in The Dumb Waiter, reappears as a waiter in Celebration, a waiter who just can’t help interjecting his own points (exaggerated claims about his ancestors) into the diners’ conversations, while trying to avoid the attention of his boss. Each time he does, it seems funnier, yet we also see something pathetic about him. In both plays, Kennan shows what I believe is one of Pinter’s major points, and that is the human desire to be genuingly heard and recognized.



Cast pictured (Left to Right, Back Row First): Peter Crook, Benjamin Harris, Darragh Kennan, Charles Leggett, Cheyenne Casebier, (Front Row) Frank Corrado, Randy Moore, Mariel Neto, Jeffrey Fracé, Anne Allgood, and Julie Briskman
Photo: LaRae Lobdell

The struggles for power, the tensions, and the barriers created by veiled communication keep these two plays moving forward with mounting interest and never a pause in the pleasure, regardless of how many appear in the script. Like the space good jazz musicians put into their solos, words and silence hold equal importance. They balance, pull back and forth, and keep us captive in our seats with the wish that it will never end.

I highly recommend these plays and cannot imagine a more talented or engaging cast. Don’t miss the rare chance to experience this special event.

 For information and tickets, please follow this link: The Pinter Festival at A.C.T.