The Dunedin Repertory Society presents The Dumb Waiter, by Harold Pinter

Playhouse Theatre

Thursday, July 30

Review by Sam Henderson

Claustrophobic suspense and sharp comedy collide inside a shadowy, subterranean waiting room.

That is the unsettling world of Harold Pinter’s one-act play The Dumb Waiter.

A pair of Cockney hitmen, performed by Dylan Shield as Gus and Brent Caldwell as Ben, sit and shuffle in a windowless basement lined with odd black pipes as they await orders from above.

As Ben exclaims at unbelievable stories in the newspaper, Gus ties his shoelaces in so strange a fashion that an audience member murmurs that was a new way to do it.

Hints of the pair’s grim occupation gradually surface, before the dumbwaiter of the title clatters into life, bearing bizarre demands the men cannot possibly meet.

Both comedic and strangely sinister, the absurdities of the situation ratchet up the tension as the men become increasingly desperate to fulfil orders of a nameless instructor.

Both actors inhabit their roles well, staying in character and dancing a line between stupidity and sinister purpose.

Shield delivers a particularly effective thousand-yard stare as his character Gus recalls one especially haunting job, while Caldwell’s barked corrections give Ben a brittle authority.

The pacing, however, sometimes plods, and more variation in timing would sharpen both the laughs and the dread.

A simple set could have worked better with a little more lighting finesse. Tighter focus on the actors and deeper shadows on the walls would have disguised a flimsy backdrop and created the gloomy, brooding atmosphere the play demands.

The second half of the evening was devoted to a twist on Pinter’s play, brought about by an unexpected set of circumstances

When the rights to perform an extract of The Dumb Waiter at last year’s Regional Theatrefest were denied at the last minute, Shield and Caldwell alongside director Chris Cook devised an improvised comedy instead.

Entitled The Dumb Waiter(s) (with apologies to H. Pinter), it was written by the cast and Cook with stage managers Meko Ng and Kaiser Coles and sound designer Freya Bates.

The farce keeps the setting, characters and skeleton of Pinter’s original but gleefully hijacks them.

Ben’s newspaper outrages become council-chamber satire, including a pointed nod to the eccentric antics of Dunedin City Councillor Benedict Ong.

The Playhouse itself cops plenty, from its funding woes to its leaky roof and post-Covid mouldy green room.

Shield and Caldwell are clearly enjoying themselves, and their ease with improvisation gives the piece a fun looseness.

The fourth wall flickers repeatedly, never better than when an actor solemnly rehearsing a Pinter pause breaks off to scold a giggling patron for ruining his concentration.

The surprise of the evening is that this refreshingly original curio is possibly more entertaining than the play that inspired it, and it would happily stand alone.

A fleshed-out local version that leans even further into farce, Dunedin quirks and fourth-wall mischief would be well worth developing.

 

 — The play continues tonight, Friday, July 31, through to Sunday, August 2, then from Wednesday, August 5 to Saturday, August 8.

All performances are at 7.30pm except for a 2pm matinee on Sunday, August 2.