The Birthday Party

[The following review appeared in the Denver Post on April 19th.]

In his first full-length play, produced 50 years ago in London, Harold Pinter set the stage for a career-long examination of the elemental underpinnings of the human condition. To the uninitiated, it is a strange and unfamiliar world; yet, behind the surface symbolism of his plays, in the silence between the characters and their words, Pinter opens the door to another world, cogent and familiar: the part we hide from ourselves.

Terry Burnsed as Stanley and Erica Sarzin-Borrillo as Meg Photo: Germinal Stage Denver

In Germinal Stage Denver's production of this initially-maligned and now celebrated work, director Ed Baierlein once again unlocks Pinter's message by applying a judicious measure of surrealism to the proceedings, deconstructing the playwright's framework before our eyes. This doesn't mean the audience doesn't have to work; rather, if they do, they are amply rewarded.

The Birthday Party appears to be a straightforward story of a former working pianist now holed up in a decrepit boarding house. In fact, Pinter had met such a man in such a location; of course, this is where the comparison ends, and where the 2004 Nobel laureate in literature universalizes his adventure into commentary on life's most basic questions.

As Stanley, Terry Burnsed leverages his experience as an existential everyman (Vladimir in Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Bloom in 'Circe'-Chapter Fifteen [from Joyce's Ulysses], both directed by Baierlein) to draw our sympathies; for as we mentioned, his plight is our plight. Burnsed recalls Buster Keaton in his deadpan demeanor and Chaplin in his pliable physicality, as he is put through the ringer by a couple of ruffians.

(L to R) Ed Baierlein as Goldberg and Stephen R. Kramer as McCann Photo: Germinal Stage Denver

Here Baierlein and Stephen R. Kramer, together for the umpteenth time, presently as Goldberg and his henchman, McCann, bring a sense of immanent doom and peril. Who are these guys? Nobody seems certain, except that they're in control—Baierlein's Goldberg is clearly calling the shots, with a sense of entitlement befitting his power, while Kramer's McCann does the dirty work, with the threat of physical harm rippling just below his skin. They've shown up to take care of "the job."

Joseph C. Wilson as Petey and Erica Sarzin-Borrillo as Meg Photo: Germinal Stage Denver

The first and third acts begin similarly, with working stiff Petey (Joseph C. Wilson) returning from work with the morning newspaper, being served a paltry breakfast by his wife, Meg (Erica Sarzin-Borrillo). Wilson holds a steady course as the play's observer, encouraging Stanley to stand up to the bullies, while never lifting a hand to intervene.

Terry Burnsed as Sidney and Luciann Lajoie as Lulu Photo: Germinal Stage Denver

Sarzin-Borrillo has a ball with the daft Meg, building layers of idiosyncratic detail, reaching her apex during the second-act birthday party, where her white satin party dress ushers in a phantasmagoric sequence, rocketed forward by the appearance of Lulu.

As a stand-in for the powers-that-be, Goldberg is entitled to the spoils, and he certainly gets that in Lulu, a deliciously tarted-up Luciann Lajoie, whose charms live up to the billing. Lajoie's used-up portrait in the final act is the exclamation point on a compressed, but brilliant arc.

Whether we take Goldberg and McCann to be the devil and his agent, or simply their earthly emissaries, the puppeteers of the church-state apparatus, or some variation thereof, Pinter's metaphor of a bizarre party bookended by birth and death is a compelling take on this blink-of-an-eye we call life.

Germinal Stage Denver's The Birthday Party runs through May 4th. 303-455-7108.

Bob Bows