The terrors of old age permeate the text of Harold Pinter's 1975 play, No Man's Land. First performed at the Old Vic with Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud in the lead roles (directed by Peter Hall), the drama has now been revived at Odyssey Theater Ensemble with Lawrence Pressburger and Alan Mandell doing the honors as Hirst and Spooner, respectively. The director is Michael Peretzian.
Both Pressburger and Mandell turn in impressive and impeccable performances. Mandell at 82 is the oldest actor ever to take on the challenge of Spooner, the down-at-the-heels writer who yearns for a return to the glory days when he enjoyed not just a measure of success but the comforts of a loving wife and a country home. Mandell has a ton of lines to remember and deliver, something he does flawlessly and movingly as he depicts Spooner's mounting realization that he's trapped in a no man's land between life and death.
Pressburger is equally assured and effective as Hirst, the rich writer who has invited Spooner into his plush North London home. Though he drinks heavily all through the first act and barely says a word as the garrulous Spooner prattles on about himself, Hirst clearly dominates the old man, makes him feel inferior.
The battle for power takes on a different dimension in the second act, when two new, much-younger characters are introduced: Briggs (Jamie Donovan) and Foster (John Sloan). Although both are Hirst's servants, they are opposites in looks and personality (Foster is mysterious and effeminate; Briggs, coarse and cruel). It doesn't take long for them to start pushing Hirst around, abusing him. It soon becomes obvious they are Hirst's jailers, not his helpers. Poor Hirst is also a prisoner of time and age, trapped in a kind of limbo between life and death.
With its familiar dramatic setup: a drawing-room; a power struggle between antagonist/protagonist/intruder; and its oblique, cryptic dialogue shot through with pauses and silences, No Man's Land is very much a "Pinteresque" kind of play, but thanks to the superb acting of the ensemble and Peretzian's deft direction, it works well from start to finish.
