Harold Pinter’s 1975 play No Man’s Land has been revived at the Roundabout. I missed its legendary original performances by Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud; this time around Jason Robards and Christopher Plummer were on offer. To paraphrase James Agee writing about a filmed play of the 1940s, trustworthy people tell me that the earlier production would have left me with my tongue hanging out; this one left me with my tongue in my head, and I hope I can make it a civil one.

No Man’s Land is a two-acter set “in a large room in a house in North West London” on a summer night and on the next morning. Hirst, a rich geezer, has brought home to prolong their conviviality a literary type called Spooner, a man he’s met in a bar. Drinking is the main activity of the play. There seem to be a thousand replenishing treks taken by Spooner to an upstage bar, each to the maddeningly iterated tune of...

 

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