Pinter is difficult. The best Pinter is the most difficult. I did not know No Man’s Land before I saw it tonight at the Odyssey Theatre. I still don’t know it. I don’t think knowing it is possible. Experiencing it, however, was wonderful. It is, like much Pinter, hilariously funny, dark and painful. It’s a play about power, a play about loyalty, real, feigned and forced, and about taking advantage and using one another. The language is lofty, poetic, theatrical and pedestrian. The effect is a slight dislocation. It is also why I love the possibility of good theatre.

An old man, a famous poet, or maybe a famous poet, we are not to believe anything anyone says, brings another old man home from a pub. The other man may be a poet, he may be an old friend from Oxford fallen on hard times, or he may just be the man who picks up the empty beer mugs at a run down tavern of some ill repute. Two young thugs show up who really are, unbelievably, servants to the master of the house, sharing all the duties from valet, cooking and cleaning to protecting the old man from the outside world and his own self-destructive tendencies. Or indulging those tendencies and being the outside world he needs protection from. Two young thugs who are both insolent and do their jobs well because life with this old drunkard is too good, and, perhaps, they really do have a loyalty to him. Perhaps.

They all talk endlessly, long monologues with wild stories and philosophies that have little to do with anything practical or relevant. As I said, no story is to be believed, they are just to be listened to. They are all exquisitely illogical and strangely believable and keep the drama about going nowhere moving forward inevitably to no conclusion.

As with much Pinter, alcohol is almost a separate character, the only one, really, with any power, here. They all vie for power, though. They also all vie for favor with Hirst, the master of the house. But he has no favor to give. There is nothing left of or for him but drink, his household and a hazy mind. No one has any real power over anyone in this piece, yet they all seem at times to wield power over all the others, to be protecting all the other, to be perpetrators and rescuers and to be under all the others.

There is also, as with much of Pinter, a subtle underpinning of sexual tension. Much is discussed about past passions with various women, but the four men here share glances and phrases and outrages that suggest there may be more than meets the eye in what keeps the three together in the household, and the forth, the old man from the bar, a threat. As for Spooner, that old man; with all his talk of honesty and integrity he is obviously willing to do or become anything necessary to be taken under the care of the master of this house and care for him.

I had the opportunity to ask the director and one of the actors, after the performance, how they had approached the difficult work. Michael Peretzian, the director, talked about the similarities to Beckett. John Sloan, who plays the younger of the two servants, Foster, talked about the thread you see that you must hang on to in order to have some footing in reality. They both agreed that Pinter doesn’t give many clues.

The production at the Odyssey is first rate. The set, by Tom Buderwitz, is a drawing room with a few chairs and a large bookshelf filled with books and almost every kind of high class booze bottle you could imagine. Lawrence Pressman plays Hirst, the master of the house with an air of superiority and poise (even when he is literally falling down drunk) and a befuddlement that don’t seem possible coexisting in one person. Alan Mandell as Spooner, the man he brings home from the bar, is snooty, pretentious, and delightfully sycophantic. Mr. Mandell has most of the dialogue in the first act of the play, mostly monologue, actually, delivered in a way to try to get under the skin of Hirst while Hirst sits drinking further and further out of any possibility of connection.

John Sloan, as Foster, the younger of the two toughs in Hirst’s employ, shows up in leather pants, a tight shirt and a sneering smile. When he appears late that night to find the stranger alone in the drawing room, you can almost smell the sexual encounters he must have just left in the bars and back alleys of the town.

He also seems to know exactly who this stranger is, what he represents to the master and the household, even if we never do. Mr. Sloan is also able to combine that sneer and bold knowingness with a deference to his boss and superior servant, Briggs, that is stunning.

Jamie Donovan plays Briggs, the older, more established employee. He is darker, slightly dimmer, more quietly dangerous than Foster. He lets his mere presence be the threat and has no need for a sneer. It is fascinating watching this powerful man gently serve champagne breakfast, dressed in a crisp, tailored suit. It is a dichotomy most actors would miss. Mr. Donovan pulls it off with dark grace.

The main praise, of course, must be given to Michael Peretzian, the director. In the program he mentions that he has been haunted by this play since he first saw it in the seventies with Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, that he had been wrestling with it since then. When I talked to him, he said he still hasn’t come to any conclusions about the play, but all the time between his first encounter with it and this production, letting it simmer in his mind has paid off.

The costumes were well designed by Audrey Eisner, the lighting, by Jeremy Pivnick, was simple and effective. Lesley Fera was the dialect coach and did her job solidly.

No Man’s Land is performed through December 19, 2009 - Wednesdays, November 4, 11 and December 2 at 8 pm. Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm. Also, Sundays at 7 pm on November 8 and December 13.

Ticket prices: Wednesdays through Fridays, $25. Saturdays and Sundays, $30. Pay-What-You-Can on November 8, 27 and December 13.

The Odyssey Theatre is located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, 90025, just north of Olympic Blvd.

Reservations online at www.odysseytheatre.com or by phone at (310) 477-2055 ext. 2.