Harold Pinter’s 1960 drama The Caretaker is one of those classics that seems to have fallen off the to-do list. Sydney hasn’t seen a mainstage production of the play for 20 years (the last being Belvoir’s in 2002).
This production, directed by Ian Sinclair, serves as a reminder of The Caretaker’s unsettlingly timeless qualities, of its enduring influence on later generations of playwrights, and of the singular comic genius of actor Darren Gilshenan.
He is Davies, a homeless tramp rescued from a back lane beating (deserved, probably) by the mild-mannered Aston (Anthony Gooley), who offers him the spare bed in his dingy London flat.
Davies is grateful, yet immediately on the look-out for any kind of advantage, any chance to deepen the tiny foothold he has been granted. He quickly pegs Aston – who later reveals he has spent time in a mental health facility – as an easy mark.
But Davies doesn’t count on the arrival of Aston’s younger brother, Mick (Henry Nixon), a loquacious bully boy possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit and a quixotic temper,...
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