The Homecoming

Rating:
Summary: It's Theatre of the Absurd, people!
Review: I agree that this play could be viewed at totally crazy, but it's supposed to. I really loved this play. I think Pinter has an excellent way of making us step back, and be disgusted and enjoy a show at the same time.

It's not supposed to have a beginning, middle, or an end. It is more like real life than realism is. It's not a life full of 'Drama,'it's more like real life, only we can find it funny because it's not happening to us.

Read Pinter with an open mind, and a sense of humor. Try not to take him litererally, but read the subtext.

Rating:
Summary: It's Theatre of the Absurd, people!
Review: I agree that this play could be viewed at totally crazy, but it's supposed to. I really loved this play. I think Pinter has an excellent way of making us step back, and be disgusted and enjoy a show at the same time.

It's not supposed to have a beginning, middle, or an end. It is more like real life than realism is. It's not a life full of 'Drama,'it's more like real life, only we can find it funny because it's not happening to us.

Read Pinter with an open mind, and a sense of humor. Try not to take him litererally, but read the subtext.

Rating:
Summary: The Pinterview
Review: I would very much like to resist the temptation to call him a buffoon, but clearly Mr Pinter was. His play demonstrates a man so obviously isolated from what he was writing about, that he was writing for the sake of shocking someone. That's clearly not the point of literature. Banish Max, Ruth, Lenny, Teddy, Joey and that godawful Sam to Hades. Finally, I'd like to end with a priceless quote from a rather senile acquaintance of mine, Michael Cristobal Fletcher, who remarked in a lecture that Teddy is "basically a nice bloke", to which someone replied "even though he did sell his wife into prostitution?". Cristobal was baffled, morosely.

Rating:
Summary: Family Reunion to Avoid
Review: Pinter at his darkest and most experimental.

This play's first and second acts are of equal length down to the line.

Sexual deviance, abuse, name calling, assault and torture: these are the norm. These people make the rest of our families seem pretty good. The play is twisted and as much a psychological journey as anything else.

Pinter lives up the claim that his plays were like, "Beckett in doors," with this one. Though most of Pinter's plays have a dark edge to them, this one may even cross over the line, if you are paying close attention to what is really going on.

Worth reading at least twice, after the shock from the first time through, the second read (if read closely), becomes even darker and more forbidding.

Wonderfully written, and further proof that Pinter is one of the masters of modern British drama.

Rating:
Summary: Really 3.5 stars,
Review: This is my first Pinter play, but it won't be my last. However, I can't give it an entirely favourable review. In my mind, I keep comparing to the masterpieces of family disfunction on stage, particularly Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Osborne's Look Back in Anger.

Pinter is a playwright in complete control of style. The diction and dialogue of his characters, the pauses (including the infamous PINTER pause), and the specificity of the characters make him a playwright one should definetly read and ponder. However, I doubt the Homecoming can be considered his best play, or I would seriously wonder about the reputation that he was given.

The Homecoming is undermined by the that Pinter doesn't want us to sympathize with these characters. A good playwright can make that a plus, but instead, Pinter also doesn't allow us to understand them. The characters are either aloof or loathsome. In the end, the plays biggest fault is it's lack of motion. No one changes, no one moves forward, there's really no motivation to finish the play.

Rating:
Summary: this play shows its age
Review: This play caused a great controversial stir when it was first performed in 1965. This is supposed to be a classic example of an existentialist and absurdist play. It was Pinter's first stage play and the one that made his reputation. Although it was very daring and shocking in 1965, the play has aged and lost its freshness and original power, in my opinion. There are many other portrayals of dysfunctional families that have retained their freshness and power--such families have been a mainstay of drama from the time of the ancient Greeks. Shakespeare and even fairy tales have built themselves around exploring the dark and abusive aspects of the family dynamic. So Pinter's on to nothing new or radical here. The script as such is blatantly misogynist. The one female role, Ruth, has no lines that sound human--she comes across as a stilted android. Ruth is so obviously not a real woman but a male projection of lust, fear, possession, hate, and paranoia. I recently saw this play performed in Manchester, UK, and have to wonder why people still think this play, with all its misogynist posturing, is relevant to a contemporary audience. If it were just a black absurd comedy, it might have worked better for me, but Pinter seems to be aiming at something deeper and more menacing yet can't seem to make up his mind if we're supposed to be feeling sympathy with his characters or taking them (and the underlying meaning of the play) seriously or not.