Betrayal

Robert (Letts) realizes his wife Emma (Morton) has been having an affair with his best friend, Jerry (Barford). He doesn’t say so; in fact, he talks about anything but that: a book his wife’s reading, the Italian vacation they’re taking. But Letts’s face conveys the pain of his realization; Morton’s, the trepidation of her own straying—until the infidelity is finally spoken. Pinter’s reverse-chronology drama hits hardest when characters don’t say what they’re really saying. Snyder’s production likewise fares best at such moments, as when Letts places his bare foot on Morton’s. The exposed vulnerability of that skin-on-skin contact contrasts piquantly with the seemingly invulnerable, proper-English dialogue. And it adds a human touch to a play very much in need of it.

It’s when characters say what they’re really saying that Betrayal betrays itself, as in the last, chronologically earliest scene when Jerry drunkenly declares his adoration of Emma. This pat, unsatisfying end-point/starting-point makes it clear that the tripping back through time, from 1977 to 1968, serves primarily to disguise the fact that Betrayal is ultimately a conventional adultery drama. The multiple betrayals (each betrays the other, in a way) are interesting enough, but because Pinter doesn’t establish that these characters ever experience faith—in each other, in the reality or fantasy of love—their betrayal of that faith lacks meaning. But then there’s Robert drinking with Jerry after learning of the affair. By gingerly, precariously holding a wineglass stem, Letts expresses that hurt not through Pinter’s words, but his own touch.—Novid Parsi