Photos by Alex Aroyan
The Birthday Party – Written by Harold Pinter; Directed by James Wilkinson; Costumes by E. Rosser; Lighting by Michaela P. Purvis. Presented by Praxis Stage at the Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet Street, Chelsea, through April 28th
by Mike Hoban
As the lights dimmed for intermission at the opening of Praxis Stage’s superbly acted, well-directed The Birthday Party, the patron in front of me not-so-quietly whispered to his companion, “What the F*#k was that?”
It’s a question that won’t get answered by the end of the play, but for some, the joy may be in the journey. The Birthday Party was Harold Pinter’s first full length play. It opened in London in 1958 and closed after only eight performances due to disastrous reviews before being successfully revived in later years. The play is a prime example of the Theatre of the Absurd, a movement popularized from 1940 to 1960 by playwrights like Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and Ionesco which advanced the notion that life is illogical, without purpose and devoid of meaning.
The play opens fairly conventionally with Meg (Sharon Mason) serving her husband Petey (Paul Valley) a simple breakfast after he returns from his morning shift as a deck chair attendant in a nameless oceanside English town. The dialogue is mundane and repetitive and reminds one a bit of Mamet, with the eternally sunny but somewhat dim Meg asking Petey a series of questions that seem designed more to validate her existence than to convey any real information. The conversation takes an interesting turn when Petey tells her that he met two men who were interested in renting rooms at their deteriorating boarding house, which Meg proudly exclaims is “on the list” (presumably a printed list of preferred flophouses).
The couple have one boarder, Stanley (Zair Silva), an unemployed musician that Meg dotes on while he alternately flirts with and demeans her. When she tells him about the two men who are coming to stay at the boarding house, he becomes panic-stricken, as it’s clear he thinks they’re coming for him. And that’s where the conventional narrative and coherence end. The men (Daniel Boudreau as the charming sociopath Goldberg and Kevin Paquette as the charmless psychopath McCann) show up, Stanley hides, and the play soon takes on an atmosphere of intense dread. From here on, the dialogue (full of non-sequiturs, contradictions and pauses) while often compelling, ceases to make any real sense (which is apparently Pinter’s intent). Ultimately, Meg and the thugs plan a birthday party for Stanley, who doesn’t seem interested (with good reason), and that party ends with a game of Blind Man’s Bluff and a side helping of truly puzzling, non-lethal violence.
What keeps this watchable is the performances of the cast and the direction of James Wilkinson, who is no stranger to the Theatre of the Absurd and other unconventional theater, as evidenced by his direction of Exiled Theatre’s (his company) production of Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes and Beckett’s Footfalls in 2015, and his own IRNE-nominated work, the surreal Nurse Play, (directed by Joe Juknievich). Sharon Mason gives a luminous performance as the attention-starved but clueless Meg, alternately hilarious and pathetic; Boudreau and Paquette are menacing as the agents of chaos (Paquette is genuinely chilling as he systematically shreds a newspaper for no apparent reason); and Silva convincingly conveys abject fear as Stanley. Valley and Eliot Norton Award winner Darya Denisova also deliver solid performances in limited roles.
But an actor’s showcase does not necessarily make for great theater. For those seeking an unconventional and intellectually challenging theater experience, this play may be for you. But while The Birthday Party always commanded my attention, at the conclusion, I found myself echoing the words of the patron in front of me, “What the F*#k was that?”
For more information and tickets, go to: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/6262364
