ONE FOR THE ROAD by Harold Pinter Malevolence of the overt variety quickly rears its ugly head in One for the Road. Nicholas, a government inquisitor, engages members of a family, husband Victor, wife Gila and young son Nicky, not so much to elicit facts as to administer brutality. The sense of terror is visited upon the audience with uncommon force. It's the menace of the unknown that's at play, and we are not told very much. "I can do absolutely anything I like." The setting appears to be a police state, the affront that precipitates the family's arrest unstated -- it seems to center on the boy. This is the kind of theater that alternately makes one cringe and gasp. We see the effects of the physical abuse being meted out, but it is the psychological abuse that is most harrowing. "Dialogue that rings like a hammer blow." The Guardian |
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ONE FOR THE ROAD
By Harold Pinter
11-16 August 2008
Edinburgh Fringe, The Space @ Venue 260
"The Rebel Players evening of Pinter provided an education in how comedy, drama, shock and fear can make entertaining and thought provoking theatre. At the end, discussions raged in the audience and that is the greatest compliment a piece of theatre can receive." Concrete
This frighening study of political torture is set in an unnamed police state where a dissident family of three (whose crime is never revealed), already beaten into muted submission, are interrogated individually by Nicloas. While pouring himself a succession of whiskies, Nicolas toys sadistically with his victims, invoking a righteous stream of justification for the state's behaviour; from patriotism to keeping "the world clean for God". Finally Nicolas insists that Victor joins him in a final drink, annoucing that Victor and his wife are to be allowed to leave -- but without their young son.
After receiving critical acclaim in 2007 with Marsha Norman's 'Night, Mother (4*, Three Weeks) The Rebel Players return to the Edinburgh Festival with their new production of Pinter's One for the Road. Promising to be a provocative and chilling evening, Pinter's brilliantly controlled masterpiece is a potent indictment of human corruption through total power.
Cast
Tom Francis
Simon Ryninks
Olivia Vinall
Alex Arnold
Director
Teresa Zoers
Producer
Daisy Cooper
Publicity
Roanna Bond
For tickets and more information on the festival please visit:
