The last 42 years have not necessarily been kind to “The Homecoming.” As the play’s once unclassifiable sexual politics (misogynist? feminist? both?) have lost much of their punch, and as decades of Harold Pinter plays (and Harold Pinter knockoffs) have muted the blow of his relentless cadences, the onus shifts to the director to provide a new, equally compelling context for this biting 1965 dissection of gender warfare. Mr. Pinter is, of course, known for his loaded pauses, but in those instances where the shock appeal has curdled, it becomes necessary to essentially reload them.

Luckily, he has in Daniel Sullivan a director capable of honoring the play’s still potent confrontations while compensating for the inevitable dip in unpredictability. This shabby all-male North London home may reek of sweat and cigar smoke, but Mr. Sullivan’s forceful mounting, led by Ian McShane and Eve Best as the two primary combatants, breathes vivifying air into several of the play’s mustier corners.

Cohabiting none too comfortably are Max (Mr. McShane), a retired butcher in a perpetual state of war against his own diminished state; his brother Sam (Michael McKean), a chauffeur who wears his uniform and his innate decency with equal pride; and two of Max’s three sons. Joey (Gareth Saxe) has only begun his career as a boxer, but his thick tongue and even thicker skull bespeak a decent number of punches already received to the head; Teddy (Raul Esparza), a nattily dressed pimp, bristles with the jabbering, hostile insecurity of a man who has delivered his own share of punches.

The boys’ dead mother, Jessie, is described as everything from “the backbone to this family” to a prostitute, but her absence is unquestionably felt. Cooking or cleaning with any level of proficiency is viewed within the brood as suspect, unmanly. (The mere sight of Eugene Lee’s dusty set, punctuated by a missing chunk of the living room wall, is enough to send one reaching for a Claritin.) And the appearance of the eldest son, Teddy (James Frain), from America after six years is far less important than the presence of his wife, Ruth (Ms. Best), a brittle beauty armed with a discomfiting level of sexual self-possession.

Rarely has Freud’s notion of the madonna-whore dichotomy been realized so literally, as Ruth finds herself thrust into both backbone and prostitute duties. The rest of the play is devoted to the increasingly lubricious possibilities that Joey, Lenny, and especially the tyrannical Max can think up for Ruth — and what these scenarios might cost them. “The Homecoming” made its premiere just as the second wave of feminism was picking up speed; within a year, the National Organization for Women (NOW) would be formed and the phrase “women’s liberation” would first appear in print. Mr. Pinter casts this particular woman’s liberation as a form of enslavement — her own, perhaps, but also that of her newfound “family.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Mr. Sullivan’s reputation as an exacting but empathic actors’ director (“Dinner With Friends,” “Intimate Apparel”) is burnished, not offset, by Mr. Pinter’s deterministic worldview. Those famous silences, which in lesser hands can seem arid and stage-managed, somehow sound different coming from each character. Max hovers anxiously — and in vain — for any sort of validation. Teddy and Sam use the pauses to enter unreachable reveries of resignation and fury, respectively. Joey labors to process whatever has just been said. Lenny lifts his chin and bides his time, waiting to see what weapons may surface in the next statement.

His calculations, however, pale in comparison to Ruth’s. While the other characters content themselves largely with one-on-one confrontations, she needs to gauge the effect of her provocations on everyone in the room — the three men who pose varying levels of threats, obviously, but also her stupefied husband and the aghast Sam.

Ms. Best’s mastery of Ruth’s icy allure is as complete as her command of romantic anxiety and impulsiveness was in last season’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten.” In both plays, however, she has had to work her magic without the benefit of a comparable sparring partner. First came the bizarrely manic Kevin Spacey in “Moon,” and now it’s Mr. Esparza’s turn. In contrast to Mr. McShane’s two-packs-a-day croak, Mr. Esparza employs a wheedling, almost adolescent speaking voice — very similar to one he used to campy effect in “Taboo.” In fact, he grabs quick laughs on several occasions, severely limiting the potency of his later scenes. He has, perhaps consciously, decided to counter the conception of Lenny as a feral tough guy, offering instead a penny-ante man-child laboring to equal his father’s malevolence. But this approach, while valid on the surface, saps a crucial Act I dialogue between Lenny and Ruth of nearly all its coiled menace. Menace still comes easily to Mr. McShane’s Max, albeit in ever-dwindling quantities. As his family members scramble to stay out of striking distance, it becomes clear that any use of Max’s cane for assistance in walking is purely incidental. Punching a son in the guts may send the old man staggering as well these days, but that’s not about to stop him. Mr. McShane makes both the stagger and the initial urge chillingly plausible.

Open run (138 W. 48th St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-239-6200).