Three's a crowd in Caretaker

BAILA LAZARUS EDITOR

The name Harold Pinter doesn't generally conjure up images of Monty Python. Though sharply sarcastic, Pinter is usually considered a little too broody and dark to be compared with the likes of John Cleese. But it is perhaps the eccentricity of the plot, British accents, sharp wit and dash of slapstick that give The Caretaker a flavor similar to the British television series.

In The Caretaker Pinter drops us into the apartment of Aston, a misfit loner. William Macdonald is superb in the role as he combines the autistic slowness of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man with the existential indifference of Peter Sellers in Being There to create a character that is both sympathetic and maddening.
Having once undergone electroshock therapy, Aston now hides from the world in a one-room apartment, piled floor-to-ceiling with heaps of furniture, suitcases filled with newspaper, pieces of wood, appliances, a half dozen televisions and even more computer monitors. His favorite item, a statue of a Buddha, seems to be his only friend. That is, until he intervenes in a bar fight and
saves a vagrant – Davies (Tom McBeath) – from a black eye.

Davies, in dirty, decrepit clothes, looks and sounds like he just stepped off of the set of My Fair Lady and might, at any moment, ask a "gov'ner" for a "quid." A liar and a thief, he recognizes a soft touch in Aston and moves into the cramped apartment. Though he now has a bed rather than a piece of pavement on which to sleep, gratitude is not his forte and he's soon complaining about everything.

When Aston goes out and finds clean clothes for Davies, Davies pulls a shirt out of the bag and grimaces at the pattern.

"Checks?" he says, in his strong Cockney accent.

When he realizes the gas stove doesn't work, he asks Aston, "What d'ya do for a cup o' tea?"

"Nothing," is Aston's deadpan response.

" 'At's a bit rough," says Davies.

McBeath is fantastic as the rude houseguest balancing a selfish desire to get whatever he can out of the situation, with a subtle sense of sympathy for Aston.
For a while, you don't know who's more impossible to listen to, Davies, who rambles on incessantly about how he's going to "get himself together" or Aston who starts sentences without finishing them.

Thrown into the mix is Aston's younger brother, Mick (Vincent Gale), who owns the old building in which Aston lives. The plan was for Aston to fix the place up so the two brothers can live in it or it can be rented out. But Aston talks a lot about what he's planning to do without ever doing much. As a metaphor for his achievements in the real world, he spends the entire play screwing and unscrewing the same socket he's trying to repair, without getting anywhere.

Mick is torn between his desire to see the building fixed up (with the possibility of being helped by Davies and having to kick Aston out) and the guilt that drives him to leave it as a project for Aston.

Of the three, Mick is perhaps the weakest character. While both Davies' and Aston's actions are extremely odd at times, there is a suitability about them, as though they fit their respective characters. But Mick's motives are less clear. When he first encounters Davies, he interrogates him loudly about what he's doing there, then repeats his questions over and over again as if he's caught in a time loop. This happens several times throughout the play but there doesn't seem to be a reason for it.

Although there is great humor and a few good belly laughs in The Caretaker, it is a sad play to watch as, ultimately, nobody's dreams are realized. The most hopeful aspect of the play is that Aston has reached out and connected with a fellow human being other than his brother, thus bringing a little bit of the outside world home for a while. But even that has limited endurance as his relationship with Davies sours and eventually disintegrates.

The Caretaker runs at the Vancouver Playhouse until May 3. Call 604-873-3311 or 604-280-3311 for tickets.

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