The Homecoming
SynopsisPlot
In an old and slightly seedy house in North London, there lives a family of men: Max, the aging but still aggressive patriarch; his younger, ineffectual brother Sam; and two of Max's three sons, neither of whom is married -- Lenny, a small-time pimp, and Joey, who dreams of success as a boxer. Into this sinister abode comes the eldest son, Teddy, who, having spent the past six years teaching philosophy in America, is now bringing his wife, Ruth, home to visit the family she has never met. As the play progresses, the younger brothers make increasingly outrageous passes at their sister-in-law until they are practically making love to her in front of her stunned but strangely aloof husband.
Story
About this book
The Homecoming is a play by Harold Pinter, first staged in London in 1965 and produced in New York in 1967. The setting is a run-down house in North London, home to an all-male household: Max, the aging and aggressive father; his quiet brother Sam; and two sons, Lenny, a small-time pimp, and Joey, an aspiring boxer. A third son, Teddy, left years earlier to teach philosophy in the United States.
Teddy returns with his wife Ruth to introduce her to relatives she has never met. As the visit continues, the younger brothers make increasingly provocative advances toward her, growing bolder in front of a husband who responds with strange detachment. Ruth becomes the focus of the household's buried tensions around control, desire, and territory.
Pinter builds pressure through clipped dialogue and long silences rather than conventional plot mechanics, so the characters' competing needs surface in what they avoid saying. The single setting and small cast keep attention on these exchanges, and the house itself works as contested ground that each occupant tries to claim.
