Hampstead theatre, London
This revival of Harold Pinter’s two-hander about a pair of Beckettian hitmen raises questions for the age of strongman politics
There is an “amusing story” about the first performance of The Dumb Waiter at the Hampstead Theatre Club in 1960, according to its director, James Roose-Evans. The run was packed out, he remembers, despite the disaster of Harold Pinter’s second play, The Birthday Party, which was cancelled after a week. But though this third play was a sensation, Roose-Evans says that “there were all these very smart people arguing about what it was about – what the play meant”.
We know better now not to expect clearcut motivations or meanings from this tight two-hander about hitmen waiting for their next job, and its 60th anniversary production at the same (renamed) venue seems to accentuate its deliberate enigmas.