Being Harold Pinter – Soho Theatre, 21^st February 2008

Looking through the listings, I saw this was in Russian. Can I understand a play in a language I don’t speak? Well, that seemed like a good enough theatrical experience for this week. So off to Soho I sent myself.

Just for once, the customers (as they are now called) of the Southern Railway were distressingly uninteresting. The only free theatre I was going to get was the Belarus Free Theatre, which wasn’t actually free (might have been a little misunderstanding there!).

The walk up from Charing Cross to Shaftesbury Avenue brought back memories of the days when I used to have to do it. I encountered a group of (probably) Chinese tourists, all in the same padded white coats, in China Town: Chinese Tourists in China Town! There’s got to be a joke in there somewhere.

Approaching the theatre, at the Northern end of Dean Street, I could see straight away it wasn’t my kind of place. For one thing, it looked new and purpose built. What kind of fringe theatre is that?

And with a bar that just looked like I’d be very unhappy at the prices. Fortunately it’s still Lent, so I didn’t have to test that. Anyway, Soho still has lots of pubs that actually look like pubs, from the outside. I must test their insides again, after Easter.

Inside, the theatre had about 140-150 seats. And it was full to bursting. The places I usually go to run to about 30-40, and often don’t fill that.

The people who sat down behind me, whom I never saw, immediately started on a conversation on the candidates for “Best Picture” Oscar. Since I had just seen “ … Blood” the previous evening, and “ … Old Men” the previous week, I was a well-educated audience for this little bit of free theatre. I knew, rightly as it turned out, which one was going to win. They confessed to having found it a little confusing in places. I read the book before I saw the film, so I worked out my confusions on the book, and followed the film. No wonder it also won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. I find that the book always helps enjoy the film, but the film usually ruins the book, don’t you? Anyway, it’s really enjoyable listening in to a conversation on a subject I know well. It wasn’t really eavesdropping, because they sounded like the sort of people, I’m sure you’ve encountered them too, who only have those kind of conversations when there are eaves to drop.

And on to the main event of the evening, which was not, for me, the play (if play is the right word), but the “guest” introduction. There was an introduction! Hands up all those who feel they need an introduction when they go to the theatre. An introduction! It was by the Director of the Institute for Ideas. At least that is what she claimed. She almost lost me at that point, as I picked up this notion of institutionalising ideas. What a thought! Close to mind-boggling. But she soon had me rushing to catch up as she shared some of hers with us. Like not congratulating ourselves just for coming. Having patronised us with that, she then exhorted us not to patronise the troupe/cast. In almost any other setting, that would have provoked heckling. But she got away with it: for page after bloody page. At one point, I thought this must be part of the play, although it was in English (I think). I was just about to burst and say something ( bit of audience participation ) when she turned another page and said “finally, …”. So I held my tongue. Which turned out to be a blessing, since the leaflets advertising the event (which I used for my notes, and therefore now have in front of me) actually promised this introduction. So the poor woman was asked to do it. And the rest of the audience were probably luvving it.

But I got my wish, about finding out if I could get anything out of a foreign-language play, because I had to give up on the surtitles. Whoever produced the surtitles had decided to do it pretty well verbatim. So to begin with, I fell into reading furiously, until I realised I was reading a book and not watching a play. So I did what I came to do, and just watched and listened. But there were no costumes (literally, at one point!), no set, and the modern necessity of a small cast playing multiple parts. I got little more than the sincerity and enthusiasm of the players for what they were saying, and some symbolic torture. Which, come to think of it, was probably all I was supposed to get. So good for the Belarus Free Theatre. They could do that anywhere, without the surtitling machine, and certainly without the introduction, and achieve their theatrical objectives. How about that?

By the way, I now appreciate more the art in those terse subtitles that allow me to watch a film while following what is being said.

I think the Soho Theatre is not for the likes of me.