Miriam Gillinson
posted 24 July 2007

Designer Hildergard Bechtler has created one hot hothouse on the Lyttleton stage: his imposing, winding hospital achieves that delicate Pinter-balance of managing to feel both startlingly real and disarmingly un-real at the same time. At moments we are in that same pokey staff-room that inhabits most public institutions – at others an alternate and eternal Kafkaesque universe. The innocuousness of this hothouse’s psychiatric hospital staffroom is betrayed by its endless, bleak corridors and patients’ screams. Pinter’s dialogue works nicely within this blurred set, with his tone switching from wry to dark, real to surreal in an instant. His plays keep you at once amused and scared, sympathetic and repulsed, involved and removed, and The Hothouse is no exception.

Pinter’s work has a lot of Monty Python about it, especially when you consider the gang’s golden rule: make a big deal out of the little things in life and light work of the heavy stuff. This is why in Monty Python’s world Spam becomes legendary and kings become laughable. Similarly in The Hothouse a Christmas cake attains almost mythical status, whilst the death and pregnancy of two inmates are deftly side-stepped till the play’s explosive conclusion. So whilst the play opens with this double death and pregnancy revelation, boss Roote (Stephen Moore) becomes so swamped in detail with assistant Gibbs (Finbar Lynch) that he forgets the bigger picture. Moore and Lynch achieve a satisfying dynamic in this opening scene; their witty and meandering dialogue entertains, while also suggesting the hospital’s malevolent bureaucracy.

Director Ian Rickson adds to our unease by partitioning his scenes with snap blackouts and clanging curtain drops. It begins to feel like the hothouse knows something we do not: as the blackouts increase so does our desire to see what’s happening behind the curtain – the horrible stuff Pinter suggests, but never fully reveals. As the play speeds along, these darker elements tighten their grip (both visually and vocally) and the characters slip into an underworld they neither acknowledge nor understand. Rickson ensures the patients’ rebellion surges beneath the main action – their screams become more pronounced, the lighting more subversive and the spaces more enclosed.

All the actors deal with Pinter’s slippery tone splendidly, offering intelligent and lively takes on their roles. Moore invests Roote with the haplessness of a Captain Mainwaring and the more depressing elements of Basil Fawlty; he also captures helplessness in Roote that is lost in more robust interpretations. Lynch has the easier role to play, submerged as Gibbs is in the hospital’s underworld: his unflinching visage and clipped speech hint at a ruthlessness that is at times terrifying. It is however Paul Ritter’s Lush – a camp employee and ‘friend’ of Roote – who makes the most of Pinter’s exceptional dialogue. Whilst he races through his speeches at an impressive rate, Ritter also lingers at the right moments and displays a natural affinity with Pinter’s pertinent wit and fluctuating tone. Ritter revels in his role and his enthusiasm is catching, with the audience captivated by his flowing, colourful and revealing rants.

Leo Bill’s Lamb and Lea Williams’ Miss Cutts are less convincing, though I blame their slight roles. Lamb is the inevitable victim, framed by Gibbs as the father of patient 6459’s child. Bill’s role is a tricky one: he is the butt of everyone’s jokes and their sacrificial lamb (ho ho). As such, he becomes the deeply unsettling focus of both cheap laughs and chilling deception. These contradictions merge when Gibbs and Miss Cutts tie up and question Lamb, electrocuting him at viciously random intervals. Lamb beams all the way through, delighted to be the focus of attention albeit under dubious circumstances. I dearly wanted a glimpse at the despair beneath this denial, especially since the play’s final image is of Lamb trapped and alone, a shining beacon of the hothouse’s perverted justice. Miss Cutts also occupies a curious space in the play and though Williams displays abundant sexual power and desire, I’m not sure she is completely at ease with her part. This is most apparent in her final scene, when she reminisces with Roote about their first encounter. Miss Cutts’s wistful description of Roote should be very funny: ‘[I remember] you standing silent, staring at a sandcastle in your sheer white trunks’. Unfortunately, Williams misses a trick here and is instead distracted by the play’s darkening conclusion. It’s a shame, because Pinter’s absurd and divergent detail at climactic moments such as this is something to relish.

The second half is not without fault and there are times when Pinter relinquishes his tight grip and the play loses its potency. Nevertheless, the penultimate scene following the patients’ murderous revolt is a cracker. Rickson’s directing comes together beautifully, with this scene at the ‘ministry’ (the bigwig HQ of the hothouse) obscured by a half-mast stage curtain. With the curtain regularly clanging down between scenes, it has by now taken on prison-like overtones. The curtain’s invasion of this scene between Gibbs and the Ministry boss suggests their unconscious entrapment, as well as the Ministry’s destructive menace and willful blindness. It’s a clever and bold way to end a bold and clever play, which somehow celebrates and mocks life without ever quite representing it.

Till 27 October 2007