Reviewed Saturday 2nd August 2014
The University of Adelaide
Theatre Guild has turned to
Harold Pinter's 1974 play,
No Man's Land, for their latest production. Two poets, both senior citizens, the wealthy Hirst and the impoverished Spooner, have met on Hampstead Heath in
Jack Straw's Castle, a public house. Hamsptead Heath was, and perhaps still is, a meeting place for homosexual men. Hirst has, it seems, invited Spooner back to his place for a nightcap and they talk together over the drinks. Two younger men, Foster and Briggs, employees of Hirst, then arrive, and the conversation takes a darker turn.
The first production had
John Gielgud and
Ralph Richardson as Spooner and Hirst. This performance has Michael Baldwin and John Edge as Spooner and Hirst, and they are none the worse for that. The two are simply marvellous together, trading words like two boxers trading punches as they manoeuvre themselves around the ring, or perhaps more like two apache dancers.
Matt Houston, as Foster, and Jonathan Pheasant, as Briggs are cockneys, although it does not pay to listen too closely to the accents as they are far from the real thing. Briggs seems to be Hirst's general factotum, dispensing drinks, cooking breakfast, and other household duties, as well as stating that he is Hirst's secretary. Foster is harder to pin down, initially claiming Hirst as his father, but Briggs later implies that he had brought Foster to the house for Hirst, using a range of slang names for a homosexual. It is even possible that they are in a relationship. Anything is possible. They do not seem at all happy, though, about the intrusion into their life of Spooner, and they let him know it, as Briggs recognises him as the man who collects up the empty glasses at the public house, and it is suggested that he is not even a poet at all.
Pinter was a great lifelong fan of cricket and so, not only do terms used in the game turn up metaphorically in the play, when Hirst tries to extract information from Spooner about his wife's sexual abilities, but the names of the four characters are also the names of four first class cricketers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries:
George Hirst, the Yorkshire all-rounder, R. H. Spooner, the Lancashire batsman, Johnny Briggs, the Lancashire slow left arm bowler, and the last could be a tribute to any or all of the Foster brothers, who played for Worcestershire.
The morning after the night before, with Hirst now sober, he does not recall bringing Spooner back with him, and claims not to know him, then appearing to recall him from the past says, in another cricketing reference, "Our last encounter - I remember it well. Pavilion at Lord's in '39, against the West Indies, Hutton and Compton batting superbly, Constantine bowling, war looming." He now seems to think that Spooner is a man named Charles Wetherby from somewhere in the past. Spooner appears to accept the role and accuses Hirst of seducing his wife.
The play explores memory, and exposes its inaccuracy, the stories they tell, the things they refer to, changing more and more until, with a reference to C. S. Lewis and
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Hirst declares that he is changing the subject for the last time, which Foster insists means forever and, should the subject be winter, it will be winter forever and never spring. The four are now permanently locked into that limbo, the no man's land.
Under the acute and often playful direction of Warwick Cooper, Michael Baldwin and John Edge bring so much to this dark comedy, with Baldwin's Spooner talking endlessly, for fear of the silence that might arise should he stop, and Edge's Hirst quietly drinking himself into oblivion, with a brief comment here and there that causes instant laughter, apparently regretting his offer of a nightcap. They are a brilliant pairing, like opposite sides of the same coin, one the antithesis of the other. Verbal sparks fly in all directions between these two wonderful performers.
Matt Houston and Jonathan Pheasant are another great double act, playing on all of the vagaries about their identities, relationship, and positions in the household. They each appear to display several different sets of characteristics, depending on the situation, making them even more elusive. These two more excellent performances provide the right balance against the two very strong performances of Baldwin and Edge, essential for the shifts in power to work successfully, believably, which they do.
Max Mastrosavas designed what is one of the most elaborate sets seen in the Little Theatre at the University of Adelaide in a long time, with fully stocked bookcases across the back, a well-stocked bar in the middle, and some classy furniture dotted about. Paintings above are of literary figures referred to by Pinter, including one of the playwright himself. If the bar was pushed back a little, level with the bookcases, and the furniture near the front of the stage moved in a little, though, it would improve the ease of passage for the actors, who spend a considerable time walking around the extremities of the set, passages that look a little awkward at times. Joe Sperenini's lighting is effective and Gavin O'Loghlen's sound design is well thought out.
The result is a first class production that will please Pinter fans, and provide a good introduction for those unfamiliar with his work. This is an intimate theatre so early booking is essential.
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