Harold Pinter’s two-act family drama has variously been seen as an Oedipal struggle between fathers and sons, a misogynistic tract that fatally sexualises its female character and, diametrically, likened to Henrik Ibsen for a wife’s rejection of respectable married life in lieu of a flagrantly independent existence. What to make of it in our post-#MeToo age?
Matthew Dunster’s production, intentionally or otherwise, appears more like a snapshot of misogyny at its most unapologetic, as university professor Teddy (Robert Emms) returns to his febrile, all-male, working-class family home after years of estrangement with his wife, Ruth (Lisa Diveney), in tow.
