‘The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you
Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land
Viewed on a NT Live stream viewed at the Barn Cinema Dartington, Devon
During the live stream’s opening, NT Live described Sean Mathias’ production of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land as a ‘comic classic’; an introduction I was soon to learn was a gross and blazoned simplification. Ian Mckellen and Patrick Steward appeared to re-kindle the embers from their former performance of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, also directed by Sean Mathias that began touring in 2009. The pair’s sloshing of whiskey, odd mannerisms and false sense of grandeur were admittedly comical; yet they exposed the folly of the men who endlessly orate with no influence on the world beyond the house. The set was reminiscent of the original 1974 production directed by Peter Hall with its crisscrossed prison bar like walls and additional inescapable semi-circular stage that closed off Hirst and Spooner’s nostalgic microcosm to the world.
Mckellen and Steward toyed with the audience’s recognition of their thespian heritage which suited their slightly arrogant and garrulous roles. One woman sat in front of me thought that the whole performance was an ‘ego trip’ for the duo, something I would have to agree with to an extent, however disliking the characters was key to the play’s integral theme; that becoming a victim of one’s own past can trap you in ‘no man’s land which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older.’ Michael Billington claimed that upon first viewing of the play he associated the character Hirst, a well off, isolated former intellectual with Pinter’s own potential fears of loss of self or worth as his fame passed and he aged. This observation, whether linked to Pinter or not is a main focus in Mathias’ production; fear of humiliation or degradation such as Patrick Steward so tragically demonstrates when he crawls drunkenly off stage dressed only a silk robe. This production left me wanting to escape, to strive and to run from the stagnant no man’s land, a dystopian warning that this performance plays so hauntingly.
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