LaCageFan's thoughts on THE HOMECOMING...

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 12/16/07 at 10:37am

The television commercial says something to the effect that there are just some things fathers and sons were never meant to share. Of course they are talking about a certain women, but the answer more pointedly is: this play! 40 years ago Harold Pinter's “The Homecoming” swept the Tony's. In 2007, it should be swept under the rug, as this probably one time shocker has lost its punch, and the normally reliable Daniel Sullivan (Proof, Rabbit Hole) does nothing new to find it.

A play whose central premise is the cruel underbelly of society in the 1960s languishes now with themes of sexuality and violence that are just no longer explicit. Because of that, a director needs to breathe new life into such works, and Sullivan does not. Luckily he's got the cast to rise above, but even then it all seems just a little too late.

Ian McShane, Raul Esparza, and Eve Best are certainly the standouts and one wonders how much more enthralling the already lauded play would have been in the 1967 Broadway premier if these talents would have been around then. Instead, today’s audience gets to see actors with proven track records, a director with a proven track record, and a playwright with more proven tracks than a writer could ever hope; and the sad truth is they all go down the wrong track with The Homecoming proving a misfire.