The Birthday Party " Pinter's strangeness reframed
Ustinov Studio, BathDirector Richard Jones tries to capture the menace felt by the play's first audiences, but the result is overmannered Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party was almost universally slated after its London opening in 1958. One critic, though, defended the drama. Harold Hobson wrote: "Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London."…