The Caretaker | Ensemble Theatre

Image by Prudence Upton

This review comes from Night Writes guest reviewer Jack Mitchell

“What’s the game, then?”

The thuggish Mick asks the homeless layabout Davies this question at the end of Act 1 of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. Davies doesn’t know how to respond and it is almost as though Pinter is probing the audience with the same question. What’s the point of it all? Sitting within the absurdist theatre style, the play questions our assumptions about the fundamental aspects of live theatre. The plot is sparse, the characters speak over and around each other, and the language is cyclical and repetitive. Under Iain Sinclair’s direction, this is a claustrophobic and intriguing production.

Continue reading →
Advertisement

The Dumb Waiter | Beacon Road Productions

After a year of waiting for live theatre to return, it’s only fitting that Beacon Road Productions’s debut production features a lot of waiting. Two men await their orders in a strange basement room. It all seems to be going as usual until they begin receiving messages from the room’s dumbwaiter. The plans have changed but what then are they waiting for?

Continue reading →