Harold Pinter’s 1975 play No Man’s Land has been revived at the Roundabout. I missed its legendary original performances by Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud; this time around Jason Robards and Christopher Plummer were on offer. To paraphrase James Agee writing about a filmed play of the 1940s, trustworthy people tell me that the earlier production would have left me with my tongue hanging out; this one left me with my tongue in my head, and I hope I can make it a civil one.
No Man’s Land is a two-acter set “in a large room in a house in North West London” on a summer night and on the next morning. Hirst, a rich geezer, has brought home to prolong their conviviality a literary type called Spooner, a man he’s met in a bar. Drinking is the main activity of the play. There seem to be a thousand replenishing treks taken by Spooner to an upstage bar, each to the maddeningly iterated tune of “How’s your drink?” or “What are you drinking?” And, as often as not, there is a long pause before any answer comes. If you have a drinking problem, go to this play; the visit will be more tonic than a month of meetings.
Spooner has a gift of gab, of contemptuous and evasive gab.
Spooner has a gift of gab, of contemptuous and evasive gab. He spins webs of polysyllabic confusion about his own past and present. He may be working
