By Raphael Sugarman
There is Max, played by Ian McShane, the unspeakably crass and vicious family patriarch of a dysfunctional and brutal North London family. Raœl Esparza also stars as Lenny, cunning and swarthy, the true alpha male of the family. And just when the audience thinks that Pinter's negative view of humanity is confined to men, we meet the smoldering Ruth, played by Eve Best, who is likely more lethal and desperate than any of the chaps. Despite the allure of this devilish ensemble, the character in “The Homecoming” who is most interesting and impossible to ignore is Joey, played by Astoria resident Gareth Saxe. Muscle-bound and mentally challenged, innocent and sexually clumsy, he is a somewhat evolved version of Steinbeck's Lenny, an innocent man-child with seemingly deadly potential. “Maybe he is not so bright, but somehow he still has a sense of ethics and goodness intact, an emotional intelligence that is far greater than the other people in the house,” said Saxe of his character.Saxe gives Pinter all the credit for Joey's complexity as a character.”He intentionally constructed the sparseness of Joey's interjections; what he says and how he says it,” said Saxe. “It gave me a lot of information as to how he physically inhabits the world.”But the actor is being overly modest. In playing Joey, Saxe at one moment has the appearance of an intellectual cripple, dazed and in his own world. Yet when he is lucid Saxe's Joey is “The Homecoming”'s most humane character, utterly needy but without an ounce of guile, a kind of cockney noble savage. “In the way that the others are mental gymnasts, Joey is a physical gymnast,” said Saxe. “He is like a dog in the best sense of the word, loyal and straightforward and without suspicion. That is why he is so vulnerable to being treated so poorly by Max and the others.”Gareth Saxe comes by his talent as a dramatist naturally. His parents met while completing a graduate degree in acting at the University of Denver. His dad Eugene went on to get a doctorate in theater, while his mother Merilee taught theater in one of the local high schools in Loveland, Colo. Though both his parents were leery of their son's pursuing the uncertain career of acting, they strongly supported him when he decided to enroll in the theater program at Colorado College and ultimately a master's program at New York University.Since graduating, he has played Off-Broadway in “Heartbreak House,” at the Public Theater in “The Winter's Tale” and at the Mint Theater in “The Echoes of War” with Frances Sternhagen, “The Daughter-in-Law” and several other productions.”I have been very blessed to have worked on some terrific productions and with some truly amazing people,” said Saxe, regarding his years of stage training. “This experience, very early in my career, has truly shaped me as an actor.”It was a very different experience, however, one that Saxe calls “overwhelming in sorrow and depression” that may have ultimately shaped him most as an actor, and particularly to so convincingly play the role of Joey. Young Saxe was a “very earnest kid” growing up, even by Northern Colorado standards. Already a self-described misfit by the age of 13, he jumped on the opportunity when his mother invited him to accompany her on a teaching exchange to England in 1986. “I thought that it would be a fresh start for me,” he said. “My parents were always Anglophiles and I thought that it would be a good chance to make some new friends.”He couldn't have been more mistaken. Hertfordshire, a hamlet of North London where Saxe and his mother lived in the midst of the turbulent era of Margaret Thatcher, very much epitomized the bleak setting of “The Homecoming,” economically depressed and socially malevolent.Just as Joey's father and brothers saw him as an easy mark, Saxe's street-smart classmates were only too happy to prey upon the innocent Yank who had been dropped in their midst. The toughs, with names like Tony, Lee and Jason, loved teasing the young Saxe and cruelly putting him on, or “taking the piss,” as it is called in Great Britain. “In that world, you were judged on how well you could play that game, but I was so na•ve, I didn't even know the game was being played,” said Saxe. “I was like Joey in that I didnt understand the rules of the game.”One afternoon, Saxe's ill-meaning cronies invited him into the nearby woods to shoot pellet guns. Starving for the bonds of boyhood friendship, he was thrilled to accept. When he arrived, however, Saxe noticed that there was no gun set aside for him. “It quickly became clear that they were going to shoot at me,” he recalled. “My so-called friend Tony turned and said to me 'I think you should probably run.'”For the next nearly two hours, Saxe was hunted by the cruel pack. “I didn't know that I was capable of running like that, but I was so afraid and so angry and so upset,” he recalled, still with a slight tremor in his voice. “Maybe that is why I relate to Joey so much. Just like him, my body and sense of survival just took over and I just went.”Joey is center stage in the final scene of “The Homecoming.” Max has ultimately been brought to his knees by the specter of age and loneliness, the brother Teddy has abandoned his wife and fled his family and even the wily Lenny's future seems uncertain and perilous. Joey, meanwhile, is lying on the floor, on Ruth's lap. As she gently stokes his hair, Joey the innocent stares out at the audience and beyond, with his ghostly and knowing gaze. He is the only character on stage that looks to be at peace. “In the end, those guys didn't get me,” said Saxe. “They never did shoot me. I ended up getting back to my house, where I was safe.”“The Homecoming” is playing at the Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48th St. The final performance of the play is Sunday, April 13.
