Finished: The Homecoming (Pinter). Hmm...not what I expected, and for me, certainly not the masterpiece I'd been looking forward to. I'd put it #3 on my "Weird-Confusing-Huh?" list right after #1 Waiting for Godot and #2 The Crying of Lot 49. A very short, but highly acclaimed, Tony-award winning play (guess you had to maybe see it in person??) that left me feeling a little disturbed; as if I didn't just read another piece of literature, but, instead, ate the vomit-flavored Bertie Bott's jelly bean from Harry Potter, and now I have to spend the next few hours trying to get the taste out of my mouth!

The Homecoming is set in a flat in northern London that is shared by a working class family, 70 year old, retired butcher, Max, the crass, outspoken, belligerent patriarch; Sam, his 63 year old complacent, chauffeur brother; and Max's two grown sons, Lenny, the 30-something pimp and Joey, the 20-something demolit ionist by day, boxer wanna-be by night. The wife and mother has been dead for awhile. The men talk over one another and yell at each other and act belligerent and threatening towards each other, especially Max and Lenny. While I was reading..."lowlife" kept flashing in my head.

So, after they all go to bed the door lock jingles and in walks the third son, Teddy, and his wife of six years, Ruth. Teddy teaches philosophy at a university in America and hasn't been home since he's been married. As a matter of fact, when Max first sees them the next morning, he thinks his son has brought a prostitute into the house to spend the night. It takes him awhile to believe they're married. As it turns out, Ruth and Teddy were married in London the day before Teddy left six years earlier, so I guess Ruth is coming home as well. Weird sexual innuendo ensues between Ruth and Lenny. Teddy doesn't really do anything about it. Ruth and Teddy have three sons at home, but Teddy wanted Ruth to meet his family. I think it becomes more and more obvious that Ruth wanted to get away on a trip? They've gone to Venice first. Anyway...Ruth starts to open up about what she did before she was married, saying she was a model. I think that's supposed to imply that she also slept around for money? Teddy decides they should head on back home and packs their bags. Lenny insists they stay awhile and at least let him dance with his sister-in-law. Lenny and Ruth slow dance right there and then kiss!!! Teddy just stands there with the suitcases. Then, Joey goes to Ruth and they start rolling around on the floor kissing. Again, Teddy just stands there.

Fade to black and come back and Joey is coming down the stairs. Lenny berates him for being up there for two hours with "her" and not going all the way. Lenny asks Teddy if Ruth is a tease, she must be a tease. Teddy just says she's not well. Max, Sam, Lenny and Joey decide that Ruth should stay there with them if Teddy wants to go on back to America. They decide they'll all pitch in with what money they can to keep her there...but they go one better and decide Lenny could put her to "work" and she could stay there and earn her keep for a few hours a day and then come back to live with them at night. When Ruth comes downstairs, Teddy still wants her to go home with him, but he tells her that she has an offer to stay there with his family. He says that he and the boys will get along ok without her for awhile. Ruth starts to negotiate with Lenny saying what all she'll need to stay...a new wardrobe, a flat with three bedrooms and a bath, and lady in waiting, etc. They don't mention to her their prostitution idea. She decides to stay and tells Teddy "don't become a stranger". Teddy leaves. Ruth sits down in the chair and Joey comes to put his head in her lap. She runs her fingers through his hair and Max crawls on his knees over to where she's sitting and says he's not too old either. "Kiss me", says Max, the last words of the play!

Aggghhhhh! How weird is that??? Is it just me?? I spent dinner telling Earl about it because I was so flabbergasted. He says that besides the point maybe being that you can't go home again, you also can't escape home, i.e., what you were before. Or, in this case, what Ruth was before she was married? I don't know. I think that's about as good an explanation as there is. And Teddy's non-reaction through the whole play? Maybe he's been putting up with her behavior for six years and was ready to get her away from their sons. Weird, confusing, huh?. Honestly, Harold Pinter won the Nobel prize for Literature with this play as one of the reasons, and this play won the Tony for Best Play. I must be missing something. That's all I've got to say about that.