Theatre in Review: No Man's Land (Cort Theatre)

	Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Photo: Joan Marcus

"All we have left is the English language!" So says Ian McKellen early on in No Man's Land. Coming from him, it sounds like a cry of helplessness, but in the world of Harold Pinter's plays, language is the subtlest and sharpest of weapons. It is a means of obfuscation, a way of playing for time, and a source of menace; it can be as lethal as a shiv inserted just below the rib cage. In the mysterious, ever-shifting world of No Man's Land, it is all these things; almost never is it a direct form of communication, however. For that, you need to pay attention to the pointed stares and pregnant pauses that lay bare the power struggles hidden behind the words. There is no physical violence in No Man's Land, nor, for that matter, does anyone raise his voice, but there is no more savage battle being waged in a New York theatre right now.

This season, fate has conspired to give us a lesson in the proper staging of Pinter. At the Barrymore, a perfectly qualified cast is making very little of Betrayal, while at the Cort, the cast of No Man's Land, led by the unbeatable team of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, is revealing the tightly coiled menace at the heart of Pinter's writing. The difference between the plays is instructive. Betrayal seeks to put a spotlight on the evasions, lies, and acts of revenge buried in an adulterous triangle; it is a situation that everyone in the audience will recognize. No Man's Land is predicated on a murky and unstable set of circumstances; as such, it is a nearly ideal demonstration of the terror that can be caused by the unsaid.

Stewart is Hirst, a well-heeled fellow who brings back to his London townhouse Spooner, an elderly poet with whom he is apparently unacquainted. (Interestingly, the script references their meeting near Hampstead Heath, which, I have been told, was a prime gay pickup spot in 1975, when No Man's Land was written; given the play's all-male cast and the characters' often unclear relationships, it is interesting to try to read in a homoerotic subtext, although Pinter is too slippery to be pinned down so easily.) The contrast between the men is striking. Hirst is fitted out with an expensive suit and a luxuriant head of hair (something of a shock for Stewart fans, I'm sure); he is the very picture of worldly success. Spooner is clad in a cheap, well-worn suit with too-large pinstripes, plus filthy white socks and tennis shoes. With his unkempt hair and unflattering eyeglasses, he appears to be well-acquainted with the darker corners of skid row. What can these two creatures possibly have to do with each other?

"What a remarkably pleasant room," Spooner says. "I feel at peace here." If he really means that, he's crazy, because Stephen Brimson Lewis' set, dominated by an enormous curved wall of gray wooden panels, contains the characters like a panopticon, the circular, 18th-century prison designed by Jeremy Bentham. Behind it is a lush -- and monochromatic -- vision of trees and forest growth, much of which is realized by Zachary Borovay's projections. It's a most striking stage image: Inside is civilization; just outside is where the wild things are.

Inside, things get wild, too, in that ruthlessly controlled Pinter way. Exactly why Hirst picked up Spooner becomes increasingly mysterious. Spooner rattles on, making conversation; whenever he stops for air, there is a long pause, followed by a minimal comment from Hirst. (Stewart's timing of these responses is exquisite, letting them go on just enough to make one uncomfortable.) Then again, Spooner's conversation becomes increasingly discomfiting. "I have never been loved. From this I derive my strength," he says, hardly the kind of comment one makes to a stranger. A second later, he recalls looking into his mother's eyes and finding "pure malevolence." A reference to Hirst's wife changes the temperature in the room, leading to a glass being hurled. The tension is further raised by the appearance of Foster (Billy Crudup) and Briggs (Shuler Hensley), Hirst's associates. Both of them have a down-market criminal air; Foster is chatty, with a slight Cockney accent and a hostile edge -- for what it's worth, he claims to be Hirst's son -- while Briggs is a quiet, hulking presence; he looks like he disposes of bodies for a living. It soon becomes clear that Spooner is a prisoner in the house; meanwhile, Hirst is given to accidental falls. Perhaps he is drunk, or perhaps he is dying.

Or maybe not. The next day, Spooner finds himself presented with a lavish breakfast, complete with champagne. (Vast amounts of alcohol are consumed, loosening the characters' tongues, if not exposing their intentions.) Hirst reappears, newly robust and well-acquainted with Spooner, claiming that they were chums at Oxford. Hirst, who now says he is a critic, reminisces about how he once seduced Spooner's wife, carrying on with her for an entire summer. "Eventually, she succumbed," he says, chuckling fondly at the memory. "Ah well," he adds, wiping it all away with a gesture of his hand. Spooner, however, can give as good as he gets, and he falls into the game -- if it is a game -- coming up with memories of his own that prove equally disturbing to Hirst. The experience of these two actors engaged in this wicked game of one-upmanship is especially delectable.

Then the situation shifts again, and suddenly Spooner is desperately trying to worm his way into Hirst's household, proposing to establish himself as a personal assistant. Hirst is cool to this idea, reminding Spooner, "No. You are in No Man's Land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but which remains forever, icy and silent."

As is always the case with Pinter, the situation in No Man's Land defies interpretation. It is what we see -- symbolic interpretations are not invited -- and its macabre joy lies in the way the author strips away the veneer of civilization to reveal the power plays and unfettered hostility that inform everyday social transactions. What continues to amaze is the playwright's ability to reframe this theme repeatedly in work after work, finding different theatrical expressions for each of them. The first-act curtain of No Man's Land is possibly the most disturbing in the Pinter canon, in which a sudden, unexpected flip of a light switch plunges the theatre into darkness. And yet why be surprised? According to the playwright, darkness is where we dwell all the time.

As is the case with his production of Waiting for Godot, running in repertory with No Man's Land, Sean Mathias' staging gets every bit of acid-laced comedy and barely suppressed tension out of Pinter's text. With McKellen and Stewart on hand, how could it be otherwise? Once again, the two play together with superb intimacy, giving full due to Pinter's icily exact language. Crudup and Hensley once again provide expert support, each of them adding additional notes of menace. In addition to Lewis' scenery and costumes, Peter Kaczorowski's lighting both creates a chilly nighttime air and evokes morning sunlight struggling to get in the window past heavy damask curtains.

It's a fascinating experience to see McKellen and Stewart tackle these two very different masterpieces of absurdist theatre. No Man's Land isn't quite the world-changing masterpiece that is Waiting for Godot; it arguably lacks Godot's surprising hidden depths and its vision so powerful that it instantly reset the agenda of modern theatre. But No Man's Land is a more compact, tensely effective work, without Godot's longeurs. And this is a rare chance to see it given the first-class handling it requires. The original production, starring John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, is a theatrical legend; one suspects that McKellen and Stewart are about to join them in the record books.--David Barbour