Disorganised dossier
Lloyd Evans
The Dwarfs lricycle Monsieur Chasse Orange Tree, Richmond How To Lose Friends ... Soho Theatre
Where does one stand on Pinter? His testicles, you might say. Not me, though. I'm a fan. And you have to be a serious devotee to enjoy The Dwarfs. The text is adapted from a novel Pinter wrote in the 1950s but didn't publish until 1990. Any fool can see that it needs work but who wants to tell the author that? The setting is Hackney in 1950. The characters are a clique of intense, alienated intellectuals who drift around the East End making each other cups of tea and discussing everything from Buddhism to kidney disease. Although beautifully staged, the play is a disorganised dossier of half-explored themes, superfluous dialogue and bizarre
experiments in music-hall comedy. Whole scenes could be cut without loss, The plot barely takes shape until the end of the first half. A lot of it is plain boring. But when Pinter delivers, he electrifies. No other writer can achieve that strange blend of casual burlesque and emotional brutality.
The story revolves around Virginia, a teacher, who is attracted first to Pete and then to Mark. It's clear that the men are of greater interest to Pinter than the women. His females tend to be strong outlines of indistinct personalities. Often they are simply dramatic causes, strips of turf for men to scrap over. So it is here. One afternoon, the trio are having a picnic on Hackney Downs. Virginia has been reading Hamlet and Mark asks, 'What's it like?' He means the play but she answers as if he had meant the character. It's odd, but I suddenly
can't find any virtue in the man What is he but vicious, maudlin, spiteful and sensitive to nothing but his own headaches? I find him completely unprepossessing.' This astute, witty little speech, which is intended as a commentary on her current lover, creates the detonation at the centre of the play. With a little prudent editing this artistic curiosity could be transformed into work of lasting interest. That it languishes in its current ramshackle state suggests that Pinter has become dazzled by the glare of his own divinity.
For a truly enjoyable treatment of sexual
jealousy, try Monsieur Chasse (The Game Hunter) by Georges Feydeau at the Orange Tree Theatre. Sam Walters's vivacious production just about overcomes the difficulties of presenting a bedroom farce in the round. Janet Spencer-Turner is blissfully absurd in the role of the impoverished Russian countess. The rest of the cast, led by Robert Benfield, are excellent.
Last December, my colleague Toby Young dragged me along to see a version of his book How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, presented on the rehearsal stage of the Old Vic. In the central role he had cast a remarkable new method actor named Toby Young. He got the part just right, I thought. The voice, the height, the gut, the scowl. He'd even gone bald for the sake of his art. Now the Soho Theatre presents a new adaptation with Jack Davenport as the ambition-crazed hack who departs for New York determined to 'break' America. The part would offer a stiff challenge to any actor. Toby delights in depicting himself as an arrogant, heartless, self-centred, sycophantic, fornicating, sexist, booze-soaked egomaniac (a portrait which I have to say considerably sweetens the reality). To make such a monster appealing takes truckloads of guile and charm. Luckily Davenport is equipped with the necessary. He exhibits far more warmth and wit here than in his morose, sneering Miles from This Life. And although this is a pacy and superbly observed satire, one leaves with a sense of incompleteness.
I'm staggered to find myself writing this but there isn't enough Toby on display. An exploration of his intriguing family background might have made for a more substantial evening. He was raised by left-wing intellectuals in an atmosphere of philanthropy and self-sacrifice, His late father, Lord Young, a distinguished liberal thinker, helped found the Open University and was later elevated to the peerage for inventing the word 'meritocracy'. It would have been fascinating to learn how Old Young, a one-man industry devoted to others, produced Young Young, a oneman industry devoted to himself. Instead we get a snappy. savage, emotional striptease. Mind you, this is only the beginning. A movie adaptation is currently in preparation, to be followed no doubt by a Toby Young doll, a Toby Young baldness cure, a Tobyland theme park and a Toby Young chair in Toby Young Studies at the Open University. I can't wait.
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