Less Seductive, Yet Still Vintage Pinter By Linda Winer STAFF WRITER November 10, 2003 'The Caretaker" was Harold Pinter's first smash - first in London in 1960, with a talented lad named Alan Bates, transferring intact to Broadway and, soon after, to film. "The Birthday Party" had been produced in 1957, but was famously loathed by the English press and closed almost before it opened. Thus, it was "The Caretaker" that first identified "Pinteresque" as an adjective for things menacing, ambiguous, playful and armed with the unsettling arsenal of silent pauses. Yet, oddly enough, the wondrously creepy tragicomedy has not been staged here since the Roundabout Theatre Company did one Off- Broadway 22 years ago. That same company - now a major institution and Broadway showcase - revived the theatrical milestone last night. David Jones' respectful production has Patrick Stewart as the old bum, Davies, the role created by Donald Pleasance. There is also Kyle MacLachlan in his impressive New York theater debut as Aston, the stranger of the two strange brothers who inhabit the attic mess of a west London house. This should have been a crackling highlight of the hectic fall season. But Jones' direction is curiously slack. The three-act structure, presented as written with two intermissions, feels dragged out and decompressed. Jones, the British director who staged a similarly unremarkable revival of Pinter's "No Man's Land" for the Roundabout in 1993, slicks up the delicious dryness with (uncredited) dissonant music between the scenes, amplifies the sound of the dripping roof as if this were a cheesy fright film and makes us feel conventionally manipulated rather than seduced. Instead of watchful stillness, we get effects. Stewart, so convincing as the attractively monstrous bigamist in Arthur Miller's "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan," seems awfully robust and self-loving now as Davies - a limitation that brings an actorly artificiality to Pinter's unsettling pecking-order power play. This tramp, invited back by the seemingly kind Aston and abused by his scary brother Mick, does all the appropriate scratching and complaining and tottering around in his grimy long underwear. But we should be able to imagine we smell what Aston smells about the guy, just as we need to believe that, just possibly, he might manage to slide himself into Mick's confidence. Davies, after all, is a man who doesn't know who he is. For all his bluff, bigotry and vanity, we lose the tension if he seems manicured to look poor. Still, this is vintage Pinter, whose liberating cruelty has been described by John Guare as "like some horrible relative you need to know." MacLachlan, who was equally formidable co-starring with Woody Harrelson in London a few seasons ago, really is a stage creature. From "Twin Peaks" to "Sex and the City," the actor always had suggested a secret interior life beyond the words. The quality translates with eerie grace to live Pinter. Aidan Gillen is nasty and amusing as Mick - the role created by Bates. This is one of Pinter's unpredictable working-class terrors and Gillen, an English actor new to Manhattan, obviously understands the slinky violence under the pale skin. He keeps his upper body still and stalks with his legs, a presence that suggests the emotional contradictions of an Irish folk dancer. John Lee Beatty's attic set is meticulously supplied with the junk of other people's lives, though we miss the feeling that lives are closing in on these people. Jane Greenwood's costumes have a shabby expertise. "Caretaker" was not included in the Lincoln Center Festival's unforgettable Pinter Festival in 2001, presumably because Michael Gambon was expected on Broadway with a celebrated London production. Our loss. Still, as Pinter has said, "Life is more mysterious than plays make it out to be." Even in a less than marvelous production, he can still fill a catch of the breath or a simple pause with more humanity than most writers can drum up with hours of breast beating. We'll take what we can get. BROADWAY REVIEW THE CARETAKER. By Harold Pinter, directed by David Jones. Set by John Lee Beatty, costumes by Jane Greenwood, lights by Peter Kaczorowski. Roundabout Theatre Company, 42nd Street west of Broadway. Through Jan. 4. Seen at Friday's preview. Click here to read the original article. [Link may/may not be active]