The programme invites us to “sit back and enjoy” Harold Pinter’s ‘The Dumb Waiter’, but for me, there was no sitting back in this tense, edge-of-seat, classic two-hander.

• The play was first produced in 1959 and is set in that era.
• Many academics argue that Pinter’s tendency towards absurdism was spurred on by his cynical take on WWII, which he’d endured as a child, and the Cold War, which followed.
• Catch Tat Wolfen’s entertainment commentary on The Sandton Times Hour, every Monday at 7pm on 91.9FM.
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Not for nothing was Harold Pinter one of the most significant playwrights of the 20th century. He had a particular talent for reaching into the darkest corners of the human psyche – to the degree that I sometimes wish he wouldn’t!

The drama is set in the rundown basement of what had presumably been home to someone of status, given that it features a “dumb waiter”; a small lift, typically around 60cm in height, that runs through the storeys of the home. This vessel would’ve been used to send dirty laundry down to the servants, or for the staff to send food up to the dining areas and/or bedrooms.

Inhabiting these grimy servants’ quarters are two men, Gus (Jock Kleynhans) and Ben (Brent Palmer), who we soon find out are hitmen, awaiting instruction from their employer, Wilson. From the get-go, we’re treated to the playwright’s trademark “Pinter pauses”; those fraught silences during which you can hear a pin drop. Going hand in hand with these full parcels of emptiness, is laugh-out-loud humour that’s darker than a blind man’s coal cellar at midnight.

Whoever’s operating the dumb waiter keeps sending down bizarre food orders which the two men are obviously unable to fulfil. Some will contend that this is consistent with the play’s absurdist nature, although it could also be argued that these strange requests are the perverse tools of a sadistic and manipulative boss (who remains unseen throughout the drama). However one interprets this, they are, like other of the writer’s devices, both funny and unnerving.

Gus is unhappy with the isolation and discomfort of their surroundings, whereas Ben is more soldierly, and resigned to accept conditions as they are dictated. He also wields an uneasy authority over Gus; perhaps because he fears that Gus’s insecurities, if left untrammelled, may somehow taint his stoicism, and weaken his resolve. For me, their interactions echoed the famed comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, in that Oliver Hardy was always bossing Stanley Laurel around, even though he wasn’t necessarily always in the right.

And so we, the audience, wait, as these two men do, not for Godot, but for the boss to provide ongoing instructions as to their next grisly deed. The atmosphere is claustrophobic and tense, albeit shot through with flashes of dark humour. When these hitmen, on the verge of committing some foul act of murder, engage in a ridiculous, full-blown argument about a particular figure of speech, you know that we’re occupying the outré zone of two beings who exist well outside of the mundane but moral reality of the Brits who pound the pavements around them.

This production of The Dumb Waiter is Aiden Scott’s directorial debut, and, while cutting your teeth with a Pinter may be considered vain, risky, or both, he’s proved himself up to the task, putting Kleynhans and Palmer to work like two pistons in a finely tuned engine. The trio have provided us with a piece that’s as broadly funny as a rude joke, inscrutable as a Chinese puzzle, academic as an Oxford debate, and thrilling as a spider on your neck.

What astonishes me is that screeds have been written about this play, but I’ve yet to see a single reference to the obvious pun inherent in the title. That said, many audience members will feverishly mine the Internet to uncover the meanings of the play’s various elements – and it’s certainly a philosophical minefield, although I’d advise that one doesn’t take everything one reads as gospel. After all, part of Pinter’s gift to us is that the play’s shards are open to our own interpretation, and that means, yes; the après-play discussions will be animated and passionate.

The Dumb Waiter runs at The Theatre on the Square, Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, until 24 August 2025. Book at WebTickets at Pick and Pay.

Tat Wolfen is a multimedia communicator, entertainment commentator and leisure journalist. Tune in for Tat’s razor-sharp takes on the latest on stage and screen, every week on The Sandton Times Hour – Mondays at 7pm on 91.9FM or on a fine selection of the world’s leading podcast platforms. [Disclaimer: Views expressed by reviewers/contributors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Sandton Times and its ownership or management.]

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