The Homecoming at York Theatre Royal

There's something annoying about men. Or rather, about all-male groups. It can't be restricted to the working-classes of London's West End, although that's where Harold Pinter's domestic play of menace is set.

Blokes have this habit of one-upmanship. They don't like to be wrong. They don't like to be seen as stupid. They don't like to be seen as weak. They like – on the whole – to be top dog. Which is a bit of a problem in a family that has a habit of producing three boys each generation and isn't possessed of many women. In fact, when the family of The Homecoming is first encountered, there are four men and no women at all – not one. So naturally, Max (Paul Shelley) competes with his second son, Lenny, for the Most Violent Award – violence of course being associated with bravery and manliness. Then Max lords it over his own brother, Sam, verbally knocking him down at every given opportunity, before Sam – a delightfully restrained camp chauffeur in the production at York Theatre Royal – drags him back down a few notches with snide insinuations about Max's dead wife. Billy, Max's third son, has been working out at the gym – what could be more macho? - but hasn't the mental prowess to handle himself with these burly brutes of his family. Unsurprisingly, the atmosphere is one of bluster and tension, each man trying to prove himself the strongest, cleverest, bravest, whatever. It's caustic, and family affection seems largely absent.

So palpable is the violence in the language that it's surprising actual violence only breaks out once – though in a way, it's also a relief, because violence is exactly what blokes need to get out of their systems every now and then. When blokes fall out, the simplest solution is often to have a quick scrap and have done with it, not to endlessly talk around a subject and bitch about each other.

The homecoming of the title is provided by Max's eldest, Teddy (Ian Harris), returning from America...with a woman! Shock horror. No longer will Sam have to play mother by making his brother's breakfast and washing up for him. No longer will Max have to mother his two sons by cooking them substandard dinners. Finally, Ruth (Suzy Cooper) provides the house with feminine warmth! Once the four men have got over their terror of this entirely new creature in their midst. Teddy's unexpected arrival they can deal with; he's a bloke, they can insult him and treat him as badly as he treats them, but a woman... Even Max seems to have forgotten that a woman isn't necessarily a tart – his own opinions of his wife veering between idolatry and vehement hatred of 'the slutbitch'.

Pinter seems to be quite happy to set up a situation in which this woman radically alters the men's lives (after the interval, they've dressed up in suits and are generally far more agreeable), by functioning as – among other things – mother to these Lost Boys. But each Lost Boy also regards her as though he were Peter Pan: she is both mother and wife. Pinter seems less happy about suggesting why Teddy allows this to happen to his wife, happily sliding off back to their three sons in America by the play's end.

The Homecoming serves as a brutal rendition of male prowess and will to dominate women, but also as a demonstration of how one woman can dominate a group of men used to all-male company.

The power of sex, concentrated in one location.