Both shorts play with the structure and tropes of old-fashioned sex comedies to turn them into a funny, but sometimes typically sinister, commentary on the games couples play with each other, both literally and psychologically.
Written second, it makes sense for The Lover to be presented first in the double bill as the fantasies and sex games Richard and Sarah engage in are more straightforward, at least to begin with. The Lover, “Max,” is of course Richard himself in an elaborate role play that’s been going on for years, but this being Pinter things start degenerating and becoming a lot more complicated. Both as themselves, and in their alter egos, the couple start feeling unsatisfied with the arrangement and demanding exclusivity. With Richard especially, the two personas start bleeding into each other, only exacerbating their neediness. MacMillan is an actor Lloyd clearly likes working with but I find him pretty wooden; fortunately Squires is enough to bring the play to life on her own. It veers into darker, odder areas but it’s the comedy that’s memorable about the opener.
If we can tell what games the first couple are playing, that can’t be said of the second: James accuses the sexually ambiguous Bill of sleeping with his wife, and Bill at first denies it, but his story keeps changing: Sometimes he confirms James’ accusations, sometimes offers his own version of events, which itself is never the same. All the time he doesn’t so much flirt with his accuser as practically blow him right there and then – I can’t think of an actor who’s so thoroughly and deliberately embraced becoming a self-parody as Tovey has since he got buff, and he’s dangerously close to turning into a Tom of Finland drawing*, but there’s no question the joke works – while he and MacMillan also create the classic Pinteresque feel of there being a genuine, indescribable menace under the flirting and bantering.
Which brings us to Harry, the older man whose house Bill lives in. He’s a camp figure lurking in the shadows and waspishly demanding Bill wait on him, but he’s also possessively jealous of anyone else getting time with his handsome protégé, and throws his own complications into the twisting stories Bill and the couple are spinning. As played by David Suchet Harry’s an utterly bizarre figure, scuttling around the room like a bug, and I couldn’t help thinking Suchet hadn’t quite left Lady Bracknell behind. In this second half in particular, Pinter Two ends up an evening of odd, unexpected performance choices – perhaps not entirely surprising when Lloyd has directed the plays before and might be looking to take them in a different direction. It’s largely effective, locating the plays firmly in the time they were written but opening them up to a more contemporary interpretation.
Pinter Two - The Lover & The Collection by Harold Pinter is booking in repertory until the 20th of October at the Harold Pinter Theatre.
Running time: 2 hours including interval.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner.
*Tovey spends a couple of scenes in a vest and tighty whities, scenes that focus on his arse so much it’ll probably be enough to nab him the Captain Tightpants award for the second year running; the bulge would also put him in the running for Schlong From Far Away if I didn’t have strict rules on that to prevent cheating by padding
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