The Hothouse

Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse begins on Christmas Day at a government “rest home” that is really a mental hospital and psychological-research station, where grotesquely funny and creepy goings-on are the norm. Bureaucracy and social stratification keep the inmates invisible, thus leaving the focus on the staff in a place where the only difference between the mad and their keepers are numbers versus names. There are unexplained pregnancies and mysterious deaths among the patients, class struggles between the understaff and administration, jockeying for favor between underlings and the boss, and sexual tension between the sole woman and pretty much every man in the place. With ferocious precision, this absurd comedy spins a tale of unchecked power, paranoia, sexual manipulation, and managerial ineptitude. Christopher Cappiello directs.