Early Pinter doesn't age well Monday, November 10, 2003 BY MICHAEL SOMMERS Star-Ledger Staff NEW YORK -- It's Monday and we've all got a lot on our plates, so let's keep things brief regarding "The Caretaker," which opened yesterday at American Airlines Theatre. Despite the presence of the accomplished Patrick Stewart, the show is a yawn. Oh, sure, Harold Pinter's 1960 British drama is something of a watershed in theater history, what with its stylized scruffy realism, studied ambiguity of meaning and, of course, those trademark Pinter pauses in conversation. One can easily see its influence on the works of later playwrights like David Mamet and Sam Shepard. When the play first arrived, its brooding mysteriousness must have been quite a contrast to the romantic theater traditions that prevailed along the West End and Broadway at that time. Still, audiences today seem to have an old-fashioned hunger for a good story that's well told, like "Take Me Out" or "The Exonerated," and "The Caretaker" offers little story at all. Set in a junk-piled attic in a rundown suburban London house, the play is a sullen character study. Davies (Stewart) is an aging homeless man given shelter by Aston (Kyle MacLachlan), an amiable but disconnected fellow. Instead of being remotely grateful, Davies proves to be a continual pain, trying to hang on to his few shreds of self-worth by griping about the handouts he receives. Aston's wildly extroverted younger brother, Mick (Aiden Gillen), pushes Davies towards even more noxious ways. Eventually the siblings weary of Davies and throw the bum out. Director David Jones' plodding staging takes well over two hours to relate this scenario, and the tedium grows like moss. A greater sense of potential danger -- or at least some sort of suspense -- is required to maintain one's interest in these people mired in their various hazy illusions. Stewart portrays Davies as a spry old coot, the resonant grandeur of his melodious voice suggesting that the character really might have been someone of substance. MacLachlan is appropriately vague as Aston, but lacks the inner electricity necessary to bring him to life. Gillen makes a jaunty Mick, although he seems to have blown in from a breezier sort of piece. Roundabout Theatre Company's revival is handsomely mounted, with a picturesquely squalid attic -- all steeply peaked ceilings and flayed plaster work -- designed by John Lee Beatty. Peter Kaczorowski's moody lighting is beautiful. Clearly no expense has been spared, but -- perversely enough -- the play would probably look more effective with lesser physical values. One wishes that Roundabout supplied production and director notes in its program, as many other institutional theaters offer. Then one might get a glimmer about the director's intentions, why Roundabout chooses to stage the drama and how it fits into the company's season of work.