The Birthday Party

Second Thoughts Theatre Company is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year.  So it seemed a very appropriate choice to include Harold Pinter’s ‘comedy of menace’, The Birthday Party in its programme for the year.  Arriving at the Bear Pit Theatre, I was intrigued to see what this inventive group would make of it. 

The Birthday Party is set in a in a rundown seaside boarding house (or is it – this is one of many deliberate ambiguities in the script) run by Meg and her husband Petey Boles.  They have just one guest, the mild mannered Stanley, whose impromptu birthday party is interrupted by a pair of sinister strangers, Goldberg and McCann. Their absurd, nightmarish interrogation of Stanley is followed by a series of strange events at the titular party.  The following day sees little change in the daily life of Petey and Meg, whilst poor Stanley is shepherded off to who-knows-where by the two interlopers.

We were greeted by an impressive set, showing the living room and kitchen of Petey and Meg’s seaside house.  This was well designed and constructed, with good period features and furniture. It really evoked a slightly shabby, working-class 1950s house and set the scene for the show perfectly.  Well done to the set design and construction team, whose meticulous efforts were much appreciated.

Margot McCleary anchored the production with a supremely believable, natural performance as Meg.  She embodied the character with great skill, whether busying herself in the kitchen or forcing her poor lodger into an unwanted party.  Alongside her, David Hope was also good as Petey, showing the characters’ indifference and apparent lack of awareness, until his final shouted warning to Stanley, that is.  Barry Purchase-Rathbone was suitably quiet and withdrawn as reluctant birthday-boy Stanley, and his mental deterioration and final breakdown were well acted.

Noel Dollimore was a menacing Goldberg, intimidating in the interview scene and exhibiting an icy authority throughout.  I thought he had a touch of Michael Caine in his intensity and vocal style.  And Michael Thompsett showed off a credible Irish accent as McCann, along with a good singing voice that was effectively used to heighten the tension. Completing the cast was Rachel Alcock as Lulu, Meg and Petey’s neighbour and friend, effectively disdainful as the fall-out from her liaison with Goldberg was revealed.

Ian McLean’s direction showed a clear vision, and a commitment to carry through the principles of Pinter’s work, including plenty of lengthy, naturalistic pauses.  These were most effective at the beginning of the play, as an atmosphere of drab normality was created, in striking contrast to the absurdities that follow.  The party itself, at the end of Act 2, is tricky to stage, containing as it does scenes of violence and attempted rape, and it was a bit difficult at times to work out what was meant to be going on.  But the powder-keg atmosphere was well developed in the build-up, and the abrupt return to ‘normality’ at the beginning of Act 3 was effectively done. 

I particularly enjoyed the choice of music to end the play, as the dulcet tones of Connie Francis’s ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ floated across the auditorium.  Like all of the music used, this was absolutely appropriate to the period in which the play was set.  Costumes were also good and, again, appropriate to the era in which the play takes place.  The lighting design, by Nic Walsh, worked well with the set to take us back to that time.  

Well done to all at Second Thoughts, both for taking on such a tricky play and for delivering it so effectively.  As the Birthday Party brings the 40th year of the group to a close, I look forward to seeing what they have in store for the next 40 years! 

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