Little Menace: Pinter Plays - hilarious apart from all that
21 Feb 2019

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

The standard land acknowledgement and admonishment to turn off our cell phones, is followed by a list of trigger warnings. A long list that quickly and logically spirals into absurdity. We are at the theatre to see Little Menace, a collection of Harold Pinter short plays so naturally we are warned that there will be "pauses" and "long pauses" as well as violence, gunshots, nudity, strobe lighting, smoke, etc, etc. Collectively we all know that Pinter is an important playwright and mostly have at least a vague conception of the descriptor "Pinteresque." Now we also knew that we were in the hands of artists who intended to mine the dark humour to be found in Pinter's work.

Little Menace: Pinter Plays consists of ten short plays (actually 14 as there are repetitions functioning as variations and punctuation) performed in 90 minutes. Even with all the pauses, even the "long pauses," it is a brisk and fascinating evening that packs a lot into what is superficially a little. The first few pieces are almost sketches, word play like Monty Python at its best, and deadpan banalities covering simmering rage and confusion. It is very funny and ably executed by an all-star dream cast: Maev Beaty (Orlando, Bunny), Diego Matamoros (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Royale), Alex McCooeye (Orlando, Lear) and Gregory Prest (Bed and Breakfast, La Bete).

Not only are all four capable of delivering the laughs, but they also dig into the nastiness lurking below, saying one thing aloud but letting us know what else is, or is possibly, happening underneath. It is virtuoso moment after virtuoso moment skillfully woven into a whole by Pinter's words and director Thomas Moschopoulos's arrangement of the pieces. The comedy relaxes the audience into a false sense of security so that when the zigs and zags start, we are trusting enough to go with it. There are props with no explanation, absurdist dialogue and much menace that is more than little.

The three men bicker and feint, jockeying for position, until Beaty makes a grand entrance, sits centrestage and mesmerizes with a monologue that drips with salacious intent. That it lacks a punchline is beside the point, Beaty has us, and the men, under her control. Pinter's world is a very masculine place with overt homoerotic overtones so a lesser actress would be reduced to a supporting role, but Beaty can take a tiny bit of business and turn it into a telegraph of intent. And can radiate sexual heat with a gesture borrowed from the camp playbook, pushing it somewhere beyond satire into reality.

The longest play is also the most convoluted. McCooeye and Prest have been competitors but in this piece they are directed by a stage direction reciting Matamoros in a film noir, possibly an actual film, menage a trois that revolves around Beaty. Except when it doesn't. McCooeye is also a sex object and is far too fascinated with a Persian love manual. And with Prest's creature comforts. A suddenly coy Prest buckles under direction, particularly when told to get naked, and stands up to the director. Except when he doesn't. It is a comment on theatre and power games and the nasty way politics are played. And in the context of a Soulpepper stage, almost shocking.

McCooeye and Prest previously tag teamed a brutally frightening duet with mock audience participation (another of the trigger warnings at the beginning). It is also deliriously funny when the epithets "cunt" and "dick" lead to the possibility of "losing face in a linguistic discussion." The scene is replayed from a different vantage point and with the roles reversed. As an acting exercise it reveals the duo's range as apparently limitless, but with Matamoros tied to a chair and blindfolded in place of the previous audience, it is chilling. Even more so when Matamoros then holds a press conference that is every nightmare of double talking fascists being cajolingly convincing. Another reversal. Humour so dark, and so currently pertinent, that the laughter catches in the throat.

Despite the cast's best efforts, two of the pieces drag out past their cleverness, and there are bits of stage business that feel precious. But of course, it is impossible to tell what is Pinter and what is practicality and what is Moschopoulos. One never knows what will happen next. Little Menace begins, ends and keeps coming back to a two-hander where the pair insist that everything is wonderful "apart from that." It is that unknown but known that Pinter harps on and the cast digs into, growing ever more strident and emotional until Beaty turns it into a monologue taken up into a fugue and a door is slammed. Powerful and hilarious, apart from all that.