New York's Lincoln Center is becoming a second home to the Gate Theatre, with its Beckett, Friel, and now Pinter festivals playing at the Lincoln Center Festival. The Minister for Arts, S∅le de Valera, was at Wednesday's celebratory opening night of Robin Lefevre's production of The Homecoming at New York's John Jay College Theater, as were actors Lauren Bacall, Richard and Jared Harris, and Aidan Quinn, who'll be returning to Ireland in September to star in a feature by Aisling Walsh. Four productions from the Gate (A Kind of Alaska, One for the Road, The Homecoming, and Landscape), form the core of this year's Harold Pinter Festival, curated by Michael Colgan and including productions from the Royal Court (Mountain Language) and the Almeida (Monologue, The Room, Celebration).
The director of the Lincoln Center Festival, Nigel Redden, who has brought several other Irish productions to the US in recent years, noted that "New York audiences look at this as an historic event, the opportunity to see the work of a seminal playwright". The festival, which runs until July 29th, also includes symposia and a series of Pinter films.
Ian Holm, magnificent as The Homecoming's warped and curmudgeonly patriarch, Max, had performed in a 1967 production of the play in the role of Lenny, played here by Ian Hart.
"This is my baby," said Holm of the play, "and I've always been very proprietorial about it."
Colgan, who declared to the small crowd gathered afterwards at the Parker Meridian Hotel that it's been "the best of times internationally and the worst of times at home" for the Gate, hinting at the Arts Council's cut in funding to the theatre, was given at least a verbal boost by the Minister, who described the theatre in her speech as "a beacon of excellence with the magical formula for success".