Review of At the Torch from the theatre dance and drama in Wales web site

A sumptuous monumment to domestic junk

At the Torch

Torch Theatre- The Caretaker , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , February 28, 2002

At a lecture he gave to a group of school and university students in 1998, Tom Stoppard said that when he began writing plays in the mid-60s, ‘everyone’ was mimicking either John Osborne or Samuel Beckett, and he chose to echo Beckett. In The Caretaker, Stoppard’s contemporary Harold Pinter both mimicks and sends up both Beckett’s tragicomedies of power and Osborne’s ‘bedsit’ and ‘kitchen sink’ dramas. Pinter’s early play, which is presented by Torch Theatre this week-end at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, takes place in the inorganic wilderness of a room containing two beds and a kitchen sink, (usually stored under one of the beds) as well as a lot of other pieces of disused furniture and non-functioning kitchen appliances. In this no-man’s-land, two brothers play mind games with an increasingly dislikable racist homeless man who seems unable to interact with them except in a slave-master relationship. His only attempts to alter the balance of power involve ingratiating himself to one master and setting him against the other.

Pinter (like Beckett) is known for the communicative silences and autocratic stage directions of his plays, particularly the 1960s and 70s ones, but throughout the first half of the play, Torch’s actors belabour these until they seem to have enslaved themselves to the script as much as to each other. We should hear a tension in those pauses, a scream that is being muffled. Instead the actors seemed to be waiting for the next word. The pacing improved in the second half of the play.

This is a difficult script. The characters are one-dimensional: it is the three-way relationship which is complicated. Pinter explores the same concept in his later plays The Homecoming and Betrayal. But despite a set that looks like a sumptuous monument to the industrial/consumerist society’s domestic junk, perfect, subtle but expressive lighting, and a fantastic scene involving a maniacally driven Hoover with a light bulb rigged to it zooming through darkness, a lot of this play seemed overly clever, tedious, and unable to resolve the script’s problems or challenges.

Reviewed by: Rebecca Nesvet

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At the Torch- reviewed by Ron Waters (14 May 2011)
At the Torch- reviewed by Ron Waters (15 December 2010)
At the Torch- reviewed by Ron Waters (11 October 2010)
At the Torch- reviewed by Tim Barrett (19 August 2010)
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At the Torch- reviewed by Ron Waters (07 August 2009)
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At the Torch- reviewed by Adam Somerset (26 April 2009)
At the Torch- reviewed by Tim Barrett (12 December 2008)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (05 April 2008)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (04 December 2006)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (25 October 2006)
At the Torch- reviewed by Michael Kelligan (20 July 2006)
At the Torch- reviewed by Michael Kelligan (09 March 2006)
At the Torch- reviewed by Ron Waters, The Stage (16 February 2006)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (12 February 2006)
At the Torch- reviewed by Terry Johnson, The Stage (15 October 2005)
At the Torch- reviewed by Fiona Phillips (12 October 2005)
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At the Torch- reviewed by Simon Carr. Western Telegraph (09 December 2004)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (23 October 2004)
At the Torch- reviewed by Emma Jones, Western Telegraph (21 October 2004)
At the Torch- reviewed by Ron Walters, Milford Mercury (21 October 2004)
At the Torch- reviewed by Graham Williams (10 March 2004)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (06 February 2004)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (10 February 2003)
At the Torch- reviewed by Vivien Stoddart (06 February 2003)
At the Torch- reviewed by Jenny Hanson, Tenby Observer (05 February 2003)
At the Torch- reviewed by ANDREW DAVIES, TENBY OBSERVER (31 January 2003)
At the Torch- reviewed by Viv Stoddart, The Stage (06 December 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (06 December 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by JENNY HANSON (06 December 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by ANDREW DAVIES, TENBY OBSERVER (06 December 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Assorted Edinburgh papers (02 August 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Zoe Hewett (26 March 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Michael Kelligan (09 March 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Zoe Hewett (09 March 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Viv Stoddart, The Stage (21 February 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Andrews Davies (15 February 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by MILFORD & WEST WALES MERCURY (15 February 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Keith Johnson, Western Telegaph (13 February 2002)
At the Torch- reviewed by Tenby Observer (07 December 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Viv Stoddart, Milford Mercury (07 December 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Janet Bott (07 December 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Fiona Phillips (05 December 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Vivien Stoddart (26 October 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (11 September 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (09 August 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Victoria Cooper (10 March 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Elaine Atack (03 March 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Rebecca Nesvett (28 February 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Vivien Stoddart (The Stage) (15 February 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (14 February 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by Ron Waters (08 February 2001)
At the Torch- reviewed by David Adams (21 October 2000)

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