Tension crashes intriguing 'Birthday Party'

Few critics hailed Harold Pinter's unsettling "The Birthday Party" when it premiered in London 50 years ago. An enigmatic, darkly comic and ambiguous drama concerning coercion and oppression, Pinter's first full-length play met with such disdain it closed within a week. Still, this early example of the theater of menace with which Pinter is so often identified has become one of the Pulitzer Prize winner's best-known and most celebrated plays.

This fete - where absurdities and humor are underscored by a palpable sense of unease that periodically erupts in violence - won't suit the fancy of every audience member. In fact, Pinter's refusal to explain why a failed pianist has holed up in a remote British burg and the reason menacing men in black have come after him will frustrate theatergoers accustomed to straightforward storytelling and characters with discernible motives. But for those who don't mind drama with a little dissonance, "The Birthday Party" remains an intriguing bit of theater which director Aaron Snook's sharp, well-balanced revival for Signal Ensemble Theatre confirms.

The action unfolds in a rundown English boardinghouse - a cheerless, aggressively sallow kitchen by Melanie Lancy - owned by mild-mannered deck chair attendant Petey Boles (Vincent L. Lonergan) and his dotty wife Meg (Mary O'Dowd, a most convincing and endearing eccentric). The Boles' only boarder is Stanley (a tense, wary Joseph Stearns, whose performance is among his best work to date), a sullen pianist with a dubious resume and a nasty streak. He fails to impress his comely young neighbor Lulu (Leah Nuetzel) and instead finds himself fending off the unwanted advances of the alternately flirtatious and motherly Meg.

Stanley has spent the last year hiding out at the Boles' house. Why he's running and whom he's running from remain a mystery. Eventually, he's uncovered by a pair of toughs: Goldberg (Will Schutz, terrific as a sweet talker without mercy), whose geniality never entirely masks his menace, and the jittery McCann (a perpetually glowering Philip Winston), who muscle their way into the party Meg has planned for Stanley. What begins as an awkward, increasingly boozy get-together quickly degenerates into violence as the agitated Stanley lashes out at Meg and Lulu before being subdued by Goldberg and McCann.

From their verbal assaults on Stanley at the beginning of the play, to their perverse attempts to placate him at its conclusion, Schutz and Wilson perform their wonderfully rhythmic duets like a couple of virtuosos: with perfect timing and well-matched timbre. Stearns also hits the right notes in his portrayal of the volatile Stanley, playing him with a combination of fear, insolence and aggression that suggests the bespectacled loner is not the victim he appears to be.

Ultimately, Pinter sets this "Party" against an ominous score. A sense of dread permeates this play, where the truth is elusive. words prove more destructive than fists and resistance to authority (legitimate or otherwise) proves futile. And Snook, who also staged Signal's 2006 production of Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter," does a nice job ratcheting up that tension and balancing a tone that shifts from absurd to insidious as the tale staggers toward its inevitable conclusion.

'The Birthday Party'

Rating: 3 stars

Location: Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St., Chicago

Times: 8 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 30

Running time: About 2 hours, 10 minutes, including intermissions

Tickets: $15, $20

Parking: Metered parking, street parking available

Box office: (773) 347-1350 or signalensemble.com

Rating: For adults

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="/multimedia/?category=1&type=video&item=192">Clip from 'The Birthday Party'</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>