Review: STUMPED, Hampstead Theatre

Stumped is exactly what you would expect it to be. The two-man show about an imaginary meeting between Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett is part parody and part pastiche of their idiosyncratic styles. There’s not much beyond that. It’s fun in the same way Madame Tussauds is fun. The gimmicky thrill dissipates quickly. 

Both Pinter and Beckett were lifelong cricket fans as well as possibly the most celebrated and iconic playwrights of the 20th century. Writer Shomit Dutta, who captained the Gaities Cricket Club when Pinter was chairman, imagines a scenario where the playwrights are stuck in the Cotswolds as teammates in a cricket match. The two warble and wonder around a decrepit liminal club house biding their time, mulling over banalities, whilst waiting to bat. Soon they find themselves backed up in an existential quagmire. Sound familiar?

That’s the big joke. The tables are turned, and they are trapped in a hybrid of their own plays. A bit of Beckett’s absurdist dialogue here; a dash of Pinteresque menace there. Vladimir and Estragon waited for Godot. Now Sam and Harold are waiting to go on to bat.

The self-referentiality goes into overdrive. Lines are plucked from The Dumb Waiter and Pinter discusses his new play outlining the plot of the Homecoming. Beckett feels like all his characters in one. Suitably weird, he is as comfortable quoting Lucretius as much as he is making a schoolboy quip.

There is a big obstacle here: those without knowledge of their works will no doubt find this difficult to navigate. If you are well versed in Beckett and Pinter you might smile at the cheeky set-up and may even giggle at each audience-wink reference. But there is not much beyond the central concept that makes it worthwhile. The writing doesn’t mine any depth beneath the two, and they remain cartoons in two dimensions.

The point may be to mimic the Nobel winning playwrights’ stylistic density. But there is so much untapped potential here. Pinter’s tempestuous life is ripe for theatrical exploration: the son of East End Jewish immigrants rose through English society to become an establishment socialite. His biography is a rollercoaster of fractured relationships with directors, family, and friends, the emotional force of which usually found its way into his plays.

Beckett is equally fascinating rubbing shoulders with anybody who was anybody in early 20th century Paris. Yet neither their biographical nor inner lives are explored here. We get a tourist’s perspective.

Even the central symbolism isn’t fleshed out. There is one sparse passage where Pinter celebrates the performative aspect of cricket; the conceptual marriage to theatre needs to be more neatly tied for the play’s set-up to pay off. 

Excellent performances keep the production buoyant. Andrew Lancel has Pinter down to a tee with his sharply carved accusatory stare framed by heavy rimmed glasses and the brash pompousness of a former Angry Young Man. A heron-like Stephen Tompkinson has a blast ramping up Beckett’s head-in-the clouds absent mindedness. You wouldn’t want to go for a pint with either of the playwrights. Good thing they have each other.

Stumped plays at Hampstead Theatre until 22 July

Photo Credit: Pamela Raith

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