Writers' 'Caretaker' a taut, engaging drama

If you have an opportunity to experience the Writers' Theatre revival of Harold Pinter's “The Caretaker,” take it.

On second thought, make it a priority.

A taut, disconcerting 1960 drama about a pair of eccentric brothers and the homeless man they briefly shelter in their ramshackle West London home, “The Caretaker” doesn't warm the heart like the holiday fare currently dominating area stages. Rather, it is a fierce, unsettling, dark and comic examination of the self-delusions, shifting alliances and power struggles among three isolated, embattled fringe-dwellers.

Shrewdly and imaginatively directed by Ron OJ Parson, Writers' up-close-and-personal production is accompanied by a particularly illuminating soundtrack with music by John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett and Charles Mingus, whose frenetic bass captures perfectly the increasingly tense relationship among Pinter's principles. Kudos.

But Parson's production, staged in the backroom at Books on Vernon has much more to recommend it, beginning with William J. Norris' performance, a brilliantly executed balancing act the veteran actor executes with all the dexterity of a tightrope walker.

As Davies, the demanding and desperate bum recruited by each brother as caretaker for their home, Norris nimbly negotiates the fine line between revulsion and pity. Even as we recoil from the garrulous, ungrateful manipulator with his constant gripes, racist tirades and elaborate plans he has no intention of fulfilling, we pity the unkempt old man with the dirty face and frayed overcoat whose tattered shoes are held together with duct tape and who literally has nowhere to go. If his plaintive pleas don't elicit some sympathy, you have no heart. If for a moment those entreaties make you doubt the brothers' decision concerning the tenure of their houseguest, you have no sense.

Norris' commanding high-wire act isn't the only thing about this show that dazzles. Anish Jethmalani and Kareem Bandealy are equally impressive as brothers Aston and Mick. Parson breaks with tradition by casting Jethmalani and Bandealy, actors of South Asian descent. All three roles are typically played by Caucasians, but Parson's deft, nontraditional casting makes for some deliciously ironic moments (like Mick calling Davies, a white man, a foreigner) that leave theatergoers with something else to mull over.

Wearing an expression that falls somewhere between a smile and a grimace, Jethmalani delivers a haunting performance as the gentle, obviously damaged Aston, who exists in a state of muted sorrow, the cause of which Jethmalani recalls in a dispassionately devastating monologue that contains one of the most incisive Pinter pauses I've ever experienced.

Good Samaritan Aston saves Davies from being pummeled in a bar fight and invites the man to share his cramped room (an appropriately claustrophobic design by Jack MaGaw that places the audience mere inches from the stage) cluttered with junk and containing a pair of single beds topped by threadbare mattresses.

Davies later learns the house is owned by the cunning, deliberately antagonistic Mick (an explosive, charismatic turn by Bandealy) who is not nearly as erratic as he appears and who is every bit as manipulative as their increasingly unwelcome houseguest, who quickly learns that each brother poses a threat but for entirely different reasons.

The characters rarely touch each other and when they do, it's mostly in anger. And yet the menace that underscores this play has less to do with a physical threat than psychological trauma: the inability to connect with another person that leaves one isolated and alone.

“The Caretaker”

★ ★ ★ ★

<b>Location: </b>Writers' Theatre at Books on Vernon, 664 Vernon Ave., Glencoe, (847) 242-6000 or writerstheatre.org

<b>Showtimes: </b>7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 6 p.m. Sunday through March 25. Also 2 p.m. Dec. 21, Jan. 4, Feb. 29 and March 21. No shows Dec. 25 or Jan. 1. No 6 p.m. shows Jan. 29, March 4 and 25

<b>Running time:</b> About two hours, 15 minutes, with intermission

<b>Parking: </b>Street parking adjacent to the theater

<b>Tickets: </b>$35-$65

<b>Rating: </b>For adults