The West EndPlayers (in their 103rd season) are putting on Harold Pinter's The Hothouse at the Union Avenue Christian Church Theater. The theatre is a nice space in the basement of the church. By using the area in front of the stage and the recessed stage itself, the set designers are able to pull off 5 different rooms for the various scenes in the mental hospital where the play is set.
I thinnk the cast did a good job with the material but I didn't like the material -- the play itself. It seems Pinter wrote the play in 1958 and threw it in a drawer never to be produced for 22 years as his first play written the previous year bombed. I think this play shoud have stayed in the drawer. Unfortunately (for me), the play is full of understated British humor. The kind I find is NOT funny at all. So if you like those British sit-coms on PBS then maybe you'll like aspects of this -- if not you'd rather watch paint dry or perhaps have your fingernails pulled out with plyers
Yes, the Hothouse is an absurdist satire of bureaucracies -- represented by the mental hospital staff (and understaff) who are carrying out the state's will with political prisoners in their care in this "mental institution". The action revolves around Roote, retired Army Colonel, who runs the hospital and his staff. All the patients are known by numbers only and two have recently experinced tragedy -- one died by unknown means by likely was murderred and one patient was raped and gave birth to a child. Ha-ha!
Okay it is social commentary on bureacracy, the States inhumane treatment of political prisoners to satisfy its own motives, the dehumanization of prisioners (and staff alike). But it is just not funny. I went to see a comedy and this is NOT it. A few mild chuckles is not ample compensation for enduring this Bataan death march. I should mention individual players and their roles but don't want to spend the time. The cast is fine. The material is dreary.
Posted by Bruce Lehr Nov 11th 2013.
