Betrayal
Runs through May 24 at the HCC Ybor Performing Arts Building, Palm Avenue and 14th Street, Tampa; showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., 3 p.m. Sun.
$20, $15 students/seniors/military. tamparep.org.
For the most part, Betrayal is Pinter Lite: no great mysteries as in The Birthday Party and The Caretaker, no attack on logic as in Old Times and The Homecoming, not even the methodical working out of a philosophical conundrum as in The Collection (my favorite).
Still, this moderately interesting Pinter tale-in-reverse of a seven-year adultery has its strong points, not least of which is the opportunity for three actors to impregnate seemingly banal language with portentous significance. In the sturdy production currently on stage at Tampa Repertory Theatre, Emilia Sargent, Greg Thompson, and Ned Averill-Snell find every possible implication of the play’s minimalist dialogue, and if the overtones never reach far, blame it on the playwright.
When the play begins, we’re watching a post-affair meeting of Emma and Jerry. Their adultery is old business now, and all that remains is to reassure each other that their once-passionate liaison hasn’t been entirely forgotten. In the eight scenes that follow, we learn that Jerry, a literary agent, and Robert, a publisher and Emma’s husband, are best friends, and that Jerry is married to a doctor named Judith. The drama proceeds (recedes?) to the last, loveless meeting of Emma and Jerry in the flat they’ve rented for their trysts, and then backs up further to a series of encounters all relevant to Emma and Robert’s momentous vacation in Venice. It turns out that the secrecy of the adulterers has not been impeccable, and that Jerry’s confidence in putting something over on his friend has been badly misplaced. There are several other scenes, including the sexually charged first meeting in the new love nest, and the drunken evening on which Jerry first declares his infatuation — and then the play is over. Something supposedly has been illuminated.
Or not. What’s missing from Betrayal (and I’ve seen the stage version in two other productions, not to mention the film with Jeremy Irons and Ben Kinsgley) is a good reason for the back-to-front arrangement — it seems mostly to exist as a distraction from the fact that the play is unusually (for a Pinter work) shallow.
Ironically, the most powerful sets of scenes are those that run in forward order, so that, for example, in one grouping we’re traditionally able to savor a confrontation between Robert and Jerry when Jerry’s unaware that Robert’s been wised up to his deceptions. As for a usefully suggestive subplot, Pinter never manages to convince us that two authors named Casey and Spinks are anything much more than names: We never learn enough about either of these specters for them to really matter. And some passing references to other adulteries by the main characters are so underwritten, they seem gratuitous. It would be nice to conclude that this is a play about a world full of betrayals, petty and great, but that’s attributing more to the text than Pinter has provided.
Still, Betrayal is interesting, as stories of love triangles often are, and the acting alone is reason to buy a ticket. As Emma, the highly talented Emilia Sargent turns in a wonderful performance; she looks so trapped and frightened when it occurs to her that her husband has discovered her cheating, no dialogue is necessary: her worried face speaks volumes.
Greg Thompson as wife-and-friend-betrayer Jerry handles his British accent capably, and makes the scenes in which he’s smitten with Emma just as utterly convincing as the segments in which their love has evaporated. As for the ever-surprising Ned Averill-Snell, he turns in fascinating work as the cuckolded Robert: he adds to the spare dialogue a look of largely-suppressed anguish that makes us wonder what unruly fires lie beneath his outward calm. C. David Frankel’s staging is superb, and Kristen Kochanik Garza’s set, bare flooring on which pieces of furniture are arranged and rearranged as the play elapses, is elegant and satisfying. Terrific too are Gi Young Sung’s costumes.
The first time I heard a reading of Betrayal, as a Pinter fan, I expected marvels. Instead I found a rather commonplace three-hander, depending on the gimmick of a tale-told-backwards. All these years later, I haven’t revised my opinion: this is Pinter-without-teeth, Pinter for people who don’t like Pinter. It’s still mildly entertaining, so sure, take a look.
Just don’t peer too closely.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2015.
