The Caretaker

Five stars although I'm not sure I would be able to read (or watch) it again anytime soon. Memorable, trippy, but also faintly depressing especially if you've ever interacted with someone like any of these three men.

What is it all about? Not easy to say. But it is absolutely fascinating pathos, absurdity, mental-illness, ineptitude, and self-preservation by paralyzed inaction. All within a cluttered, barely functioning room.

At the end of the play, two weeks later, everything is as it was when the play started. You've been introduced to the men only within the most claustrophobic confines and wonder how they must narrowly navigate the outside world so precariously. Characters Mick, Aston, and Davies have danced and parled, yet with no show more ultimate effect or change on the future of each of their lives. Mick will still be planning to use his van to get his business really going. Aston will work on that plug, bring home junk, and be ready any minute to build a shed. And Davies will, in bad shoes, still be a down and out old man with his papers over in Sidcup.

Wait, maybe one thing changed: the dripping into the bucket finally stopped. Or perhaps just paused, like the forever pause of these men's lives. show less

My favourite Pinter play. It has those Pinteresque pauses, ambiguous characters, plenty of menace and some dazzling speeches.

I had forgotten I had this and other Pinter titles. He has just died, his archive safely located at the British Library.