Harold Pinter’s plays are a regular feature on Australian stages, with the shorter one-act plays often paired, as they are here. The Lover and The Dumb Waiter are an interesting choice of two by director Mark Kilmurry. They work well in the home of Ensemble Theatre, where the confined space feeds the claustrophobia and feeling of entrapment that permeates both plays.
The Lover, written as a TV play, was first performed in 1963. Through today’s lens, the Ensemble set, from designer and costumier Simone Romaniuk, is all retro chic. Blue, orange, pink and teal colours dominate, patterned in geometric half-moon shapes. It’s matched with a 60s soundtrack by composer and sound designer Daryl Wallis.
A bored middle-class couple Richard (Gareth Davies) and Sarah (Nicole da Silva) are going through the motions of a stale marriage, engaging in a dialogue of distracted banalities. Richard leaves for work in the city but, with an almost throw-away Iine, “Is your lover coming today?” we realise there is another reality. It’s one in which Richard is equally complicit when he casually mentions he has a mistress, or rather in his words, “a common or garden slut.” (Spoiler alert!) Soon enough the lover ‘Max’ is revealed as Richard and the ‘sex worker’ as Sarah.
It is the interplay of the ‘real’ and an alternate world that drives the action in a plot more psychological than narrative. Sarah and Richard’s relationship is hermetic in both worlds, always looking outwards, but remaining steadfastly stuck and rule-bound.
Metaphors abound. In a particularly funny scene, bongo drums become a primal proxy for flirting and sex, and a contest for dominance within the relationship. Role-playing has sustained their marriage, and it’s all going to be fine as long as the rules hold. However, as Richard voices his weariness with the arrangement, reality and pretence begin to blur.
Davies and da Silva give two terrific physical performances. Davies plays the remote husband with characteristic ennui and the louche lover with splendid side-eye and insouciant gait. Da Silva is equally believable as the bored housewife and the sultry vixen. They have an easy chemistry and play off each other with sly self-awareness. As critiques of marriage go, The Lover is a highly entertaining one.
The Dumb Waiter similarly establishes a physically entombed reality, though here the critique is of class: the pursuit of dominance within that class, and the impossibility of escaping it. The play opens ominously with an evocative soundscape of rain and honking traffic, which fades to the drip and gurgle of subterranean water.
A single lightbulb fritzes on, illuminating two grimy-sheeted iron beds. Their sweaty inhabitants are waiting – and waiting – on instructions for their latest hit. The only contact they have with the world above is a dumb waiter that duly groans into life delivering increasingly absurd food orders from an unseen boss. The metaphor for class delineation and immobility is obvious, as is the nod to Beckett.
Both plays highlight Davies’ range, even though his accent in The Dumb Waiter wobbles at times. As Ben, he doesn’t overplay his role. There’s no swagger, just well-judged menace, as the two hitmen bicker like, well, a married couple. Davies generously permits Anthony Taufa to almost steal the show as Gus – a big guy whose physical presence is offset by a wide-eyed, morally sensitive, subservience to smaller, older Ben. Taufa’s working class London accent convinces, and there’s a warm Tongan rhythm woven through his delivery. It’s a winning combination.
The set design and carefully detailed costuming from Romaniuk thankfully doesn’t try to modernise the play, maintaining its 1960 milieu, and enhancing its enduring relevance.
Pinter’s plays frequently juxtapose comedy with menace or dread that permits varied interpretations. This production leans into the comedic possibilities so that the unsettling undercurrents are perhaps not as dark.
The Dumb Waiter is probably the more satisfying of the two plays. It presents life as an absurd farce while still maintaining a deep sense of dread that something is going to go awfully wrong, and here the payoff is clear. Nevertheless, both The Lover and The Dumb Waiter are imaginatively staged and acted with impeccable comic timing. It’s wonderful to see Pinter’s timeless pieces performed with such verve and wit.
The Lover and The Dumb Waiter are on now at and run to 7 June at Ensemble Theatre, 78 McDougall Street Kirribilli NSW 2061.
Tickets: https://boxoffice.ensemble.com.au/WebPages/EntaWebShow/ShowPerformance.aspx
Website: https://www.ensemble.com.au/
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Photo credits: Prudence Upton
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