CW: Rape
What’s stuffier than a perfume shop and more packed than a Lego Store on opening day? It’s the Burton Taylor Studio, and no less so than during the sold out run of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (5th-9th May). In this debut show by Postbox Productions, we are transported to a rundown boarding house where marital dispute, mental torture, and birthday games come together to create a disturbing yet humorous play.
Pinter’s play poses quite the challenge, and directors Marnie Frankel and Lois Avery are scrupulous in every detail (I should know, one of them sat next to me and filled what seemed like half a book with notes on the opening night). The audience is constantly teased with contradictory information. Is it a birthday party? Who is Stanley (Rufus Shutter)? And how Cockney can Goldberg (Will Hamp) go? And, though quite conservative in terms of design, the acting truly brings out the gifts of this play.
The opening brings a convincingly dishevelled Meg (Cait Kremenstein), whose voice and mannerisms are a consistent highlight of the night, fussing over breakfast for her rather resigned husband Petey (Charlie Heath) and Stanley, the sole boarder. Kremenstein, Heath, and Shutter have a lovely dynamic on stage, with subtle changes of tone and character. Humour litters the play, from the hilarious reveal of the trapdoor-cupboard at the start to Meg’s flirty attitude towards Stanley, and the cast allow the energy of these moments to lift up the darker undertones of the play.
Yet things change for Stanley when Goldberg and McCann (Seb Foster) turn up to stay and join Meg in organising his birthday party – but is it actually his birthday? Hamp and Foster offer a wonderful good cop, bad cop duo that is hilarious to watch on stage and blends the serious with the absurd (“All the same, give me a blow!”). Their torrent of lines as they intimidate Stanley serves a good number of gags and their timing is (for the most part) slick. Watching their complete change in manner, demeanour, and accent when dealing with Meg compared to Stanley gives a much-needed release of tension during the play’s darker moments. The pounding of the drum as they circle Stanley like vultures and the quiet intimidation of Petey had me on edge. Trapped inside the tight arms of the BT, you couldn’t escape the tension (or the noise!), but the directors ensure a good balance throughout.
The most well-produced moment of the show was the birthday party itself, where the cast play a thrilling game of Blind Man’s Buff. Lulu (Amelie Rosner), a neighbour of the boarding house, is allowed to shine in this section with her loveably clueless character mirroring the confused state of the audience. The quietness of this scene, as in turn each of the characters is forced to stumble around the stage, was punctured by Lulu’s scream at the end as Stanley attempts to rape her on the table. A harrowing and deeply disturbing moment, the cast handle it exceptionally well.
Nearing the end of the show, and practically sweltering in my jumper (did I mention the heat!?), we watch as Petey gives up a short-lived fight as Stanley is carried away. Quite why and how is for the audience to guess, as is the nature of every character in the play. The reserved character of Petey, the stoney-faced Stanley, the relentlessly positive Meg: all the characters in The Birthday Party are fascinating to watch and analyse, stuck in their sad story. Pinter’s play makes no attempt to glamourise this life, nor provide anyone to sympathise with, rather, one must simply enjoy the absurdity of the play.
One final conversation between Meg and Petey, who now live in a house with no borders, offers a bleak prospect at the end of the play, now devoid of humour. Heath’s impassive Petey contrasts with Kremenstein’s sentimental and unloved Meg at this moment, and it is with Meg’s wistful “I know I was” that we end the show, wishing that we knew anything as certainly as Meg.
Though it messed with my sense of reality, it was a very well assembled production, and the cast offered a promising selection of new Oxford talent. All in all, I am sure this is not the last we have heard of Postbox Productions.
