A family’s power struggle

In Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming,” a long-running contest of wills is taking place inside an all-male household in working-class London. The needy combatants are aging father Max; his stolid brother, Sam; and two of Max’s three adult sons -- Joey, an amateur boxer, and Lenny, a well-tailored pimp.

The unexpected arrival of Max’s estranged third son, philosophy professor Teddy, and his wife, Ruth, raises the stakes to a dangerous new high.

Still shocking and shockingly funny, this pitch-black comedy of appalling family manners -- with its reality-shifting intimations of violence, prostitution, confused sexuality, incestuous child abuse -- is among Pinter’s ambiguous, disturbing best. A Noise Within’s stunning revival is the Glendale-based theater company’s first Pinter outing.

Directed with surgical precision by Sabin Epstein, it features a dead-on cast led by Len Lesser’s memorable Max, a shovel-faced patriarch, snarling, whining and waxing sentimental.

As is characteristic with Pinter, what’s on the surface is not necessarily what’s happening beneath it. Epstein and his actors, whose individual stillnesses in the midst of verbal onslaughts are equally riveting, make that clear from the get-go.

When Max taunts one son, demands “a cuddle and a kiss” from another or reviles his late wife’s memory, he elicits big laughs. A beat or two later, an unsettling subtext worms its way through the humor, lingering in a weighted pause.

Seemingly impassive, Mitchell Edmonds’ dapper Sam is building up to volcanic agitation in the face of Max’s festering resentments and sneering allusions to homosexuality. Markus Potter finds notes of unexpected poignancy in Joey, who is both simple and corrupt, and standout Ben Livingston is compelling as Lenny, who conceals viciousness beneath an arresting mask of suavity.

Upon meeting Ruth (Abby Craden), Max, Joey and Lenny each seem to scent a moral pollution akin to their own that makes her fair game. Mikael Salazar’s Teddy is an enigma, trading token resistance for indifference as he listens to his family’s plans to make use of his wife.

As Ruth issues her own challenge, causing a seismic shift in the power struggle, Craden -- with her black-cat eyeliner and full red lips -- displays a voluptuous sensuality to charged effect with each twist of her torso and slow arch of her back. Costume designer Nadine D. Parkos enhances the deliberate display with a contradiction of soft, clinging fabrics used for Craden’s modest blouse and skirt.

The authenticity of this play, where bizarre manifestations of the id are interwoven with the commonplace, is carried through all elements of the production: Parkos’ costumes and Joyce Ann Cantrell’s hair design; set designer Michael C. Smith’s outsized Victorian house interior, with its staircase leading to the menace of unseen rooms; composer Laura Karpman’s discordant piano accents; Ron Wyand’s pristine sound and lighting designer Peter Gottlieb’s telling shadows.

*

‘The Homecoming’

Where: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale

When: Resumes 8 p.m. Friday. Also runs

8 p.m. Nov. 4, 5, 17 and 18; 2 and 8 p.m.

Nov. 6 and Dec. 4; 2 and 7 p.m. Nov. 14;

2 p.m. Dec. 5

Ends: Dec. 5

Price: $20 to $40

Info: (818) 240-0910, Ext. 1

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes