Thursday night was spent in a small room with a homeless man, an ex-mental patient and a contractor witnessing Harold Pinter’s 1960 play, The Caretaker, at the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta. Fascinated, I had no wish to leave.
The Caretaker is three-person/three act play (twenty-minute intermission), that is set entirely within a bedroom. We happen upon the bedroom as Aston, played by Yalin Ozucelik, arrives bringing in a homeless man named Mac Davies, played by Nicholas Papademetriou. Davies (Papademetriou) has been attacked and needs some new shoes and somewhere to sleep. The good-hearted Aston (Ozucelik) offers Davies (Papademetriou) the spare bed for the night. One night turns into many as the two men engage with each other, discussing things like shoes and the draft and Davies assumed name. The men are occasionally interrupted by sudden appearances of Aston’s brother Mick (Alex Bryant-Smith).
The brilliance of Pinter’s plays lay not in the action, but in the creation of a small and complex world wherein’ humanity happens. The confined space of one room allows for the stakes for the characters to be raised to values far beyond what they are in the world outside. What is not said within Pinter’s dialogue is just as important as what is.
In this production by Throwing Shade and Theatron Group, the success of the play is entirely due to the skill of the cast. The slow pace of the play passed unnoticed as the characters became real and their individual preoccupations and motives became that of the audience.
Papademetriou was studied, subtle and brilliant in his portrayal of Davies. The pains in character development did not go unnoticed or unrewarded in this complete character. The true horror of Davis was hilarious in his narcissistic preoccupation with his own needs. Equally matched by Ozucelik in his portrayal of Aston, who was gradually revealed and simple and complex all at once. Both characters developed slowly throughout the play, each of the players careful not to give too much away too soon.
I found this version of The Caretaker to be a beautiful collaboration between clever writing and well-crafted acting.
Christina Donoghue, Theatre Now Sydney
The Caretaker
Harold Pinter
22nd Nove – 2nd Dec 2017
Tue – Sat  7:30pm,
2:00pm Sat 25th November and 5:00pm Sun 26th November
Venue: The Actor’s Pulse Studio, 103 Regent St, Redfern
Theatre Company: Throwing Shade Theatre Company
Duration: n/a
An old bum receives shelter in a cluttered room of an abandoned house. Aston lives in personal and emotional isolation, tinkering with gadgets and dreaming of building a shed out in the yard. And Mick, who carries on like a man of affairs, inhabits a dream world that resembles an extrovert’s nightmares.
It is winter. Into his derelict household shrine Aston brings Davies, a tramp – but a tramp with pretensions, even if to the world he may be a pathetic old creature. All that is left of his past now is the existence in Sidcup of some papers, papers that will prove exactly who he is and enable him to start again. Aston, too, has his dreams: he has always been good with his hands and there is so much to do in the house. Aston’s hopes are tied to his flash brother Mick’s; he has aspirations to live in a luxurious apartment. Human nature is a great spoiler of plans, however…
Throwing Shade Theatre Company (Metamorphosis, Vincent River) brings a classic of absurdist theatre to the Sydney stage from Wednesday 22nd November 2017. Directed by Courtney Powell, ‘The Caretaker’ stars Alex Bryant-Smith (The Cherry Orchard, As You Like It), Andrew Langcake (Love Song, Marat / Sade) and Nicholas Papademetriou (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, An Unseasonable Fall of Snow).
Ticket Prices
Preview / Tues: $25.00 Full: $35.00 Conc: $30.00
