"I tell you, it was like Christmas."

Teddy: Six years ago, I married Ruth and we left for America. I’ve found success and come back to London to see my dad. My uncle. My two brothers. I was the favorite. This was my home. Why did I have to leave?

Max: My son Teddy left six years ago. Now he’s back, with a woman we’ve never seen before. He left me with a crippled family. This was his home. Why did he have to leave? And why’d he come back?

Ruth: Six years ago, Teddy and I married quickly and left for America. Now I’m meeting his family at last. England was our home. Why did we have to leave?

The Flatwater Shakespeare Company and the Haymarket Theatre proudly present Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming at the Haymarket Theatre, 803 Q Street in Lincoln, beginning Thursday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m. Performances continue Friday - Sunday, April 16-18; and Thursdays - Sundays, April 22-25 and April 29-30 and May 1-2. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays - Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Call 477-2600 for tickets.

The Homecoming has been described as “perhaps the most cruel play ever written and certainly one of the funniest.” It’s a devastating look at the ties that bind families together. It explores the fine line between love and hate – and wonders if such a line exists at all.

The setting is a working-class neighborhood in North London in the 1960s. Max, a retired butcher, lives in an old house there with his brother, Sam, and his two younger sons, Lenny and Joey. One night, Max’s oldest son, Teddy, returns for a visit with his wife, Ruth. As the play unfolds, the tensions, power struggles, nostalgia, and resentments continue to build.

Harold Pinter, the playwright, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. The Swedish Academy, in its citation, observed that in his plays Pinter “uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle.” He has been praised for his powerful combinations of fear and humor, suppressed information and enveloping atmosphere, surreal developments and exacting language and ominous silences.

Director Bob Hall -- Nebraska's 2010 Artist of the Year -- is also featured as the family patriarch, Max. Rob Burt is the modern-day prodigal, Teddy, and Melissa Lewis Nuss is Ruth. Scott Glen appears as Sam, while Nathan Weiss and Jeff Tinnean play Lenny and Joey.

Flatwater Shakespeare is in its sixth year as a professional not-for-profit theatre company, bringing to Lincoln audiences the richness of dramatic works as they were meant to be experienced: visit www.flatwatershakespeare.org. The Haymarket Theatre continues its mission of presenting vibrant and thought-provoking drama: visit www.haymarkettheatre.org.

The Homecoming
Dates: April 15-18, 22-25, 29-30 and May 1-2
Time: 7:30 p.m.; 2 p.m. on Sundays
Place: The Haymarket Theatre, 803 Q Street in Lincoln
Tickets: (402) 477-2600
$18 Adults; $15 Seniors; $10 Students