Theater in NYC: Betrayal by Harold Pinter on Broadway
Betrayal, the most famous play by English playwright Harold Pinter is running on Broadway with incredible Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox, and Zawe Ashton; until December 8, 2019
The play Betrayal, directed by Jamie Lloyd, a recognized interpreter of Pinter’s oeuvre, and staged by a scenic designer Soutra Gilmour, comes to New York after a triumphant run in London at the standing-room-only sold-out house at Harold Pinter Theater. The reverse chronology of the script coupled with the bare stage design put a premium on acting in this tense psychological drama. This is where the superb cast shines. Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox, and Zawe Ashton successfully navigate the intricacies of the script progressing from the first scene when the affair is over back in time to its start.
Hiddleston’s refined performance as Robert, the deceived husband, sets the finely measured tone and carries the plot to its highest points of controlled tensions. Cox as Jerry, Robert’s close friend, excels in depicting a character that goes with a flow. Emma, Robert’s wife, and Jerry’s lover, in Ashton’s interpretation, comes across as reserved and underwhelming.
Lloyd employs the novel technique of keeping all three characters on stage even in the scenes written for two. This is a cunning way to stress the unconscious awareness of guilt. Locked in a bitter love-triangle, each of the three is guilty in deceiving the other two. Coupled with the reverse chronology of the script, the production is deceptively simple yet deeply sophisticated. A few fine accents like costume change would help in articulating the passage of time for this otherwise fluid and well-balanced spectacle.
Betrayal runs for only 17 weeks on Broadway until December 8, 2019. Click below for tickets at 56% off.
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Harold Pinter, a British playwright, and author had wrote Betrayal in 1978. The script unfolds backward from a point in time when the lovers, Jerry and Emma, meet two years after a breakup. They reminisce about minute details of their seven-year affair. From there the play goes back to the moment when Emma’s husband Robert, who is also Jerry’s close friend, introduced them to each other.
Pinter shared with his biographer that the script for Betrayal follows his personal seven-year extramarital affair which happened a decade earlier than in the play. Characteristic of Englishness in its reserved manners, hidden emotions, and spare dialogue the play is a potent draw for actors and directors to explore the limits of fidelity and love.
Brought to Broadway after an extremely successful run at Harold Pinter Theater in London, Jamie Lloyd’s production highlights the strength of acting by striping the set design to a bare minimum and by keeping all three actors on stage the whole time. The actors do not leave even in the scenes where only two are in the focus which suggests as The Guardian review notes “the labyrinthine nature of betrayal.” The lingering of the third person even in the shadows serves as a reminder that one cannot get away from one’s consciousness of guilt.
Intentionally or not, the script gives the male actors plenty of space to demonstrate their mastery and craft. Tom Hiddleston, well known for his theater works with Cheek by Jowl company amongst many others, and to a wide public for his role in Avengers, is superb in portraying Robert, a deceived husband who is also complicit in the three-sided betrayal. Robert knowingly suppresses the fact that he is aware of his wife’s affair with his friend which makes him a matching player in the three-sided lies.
Charlie Cox as Jerry, an unexceptional literally entrepreneur, is convincing in his eagerness to please and to smooth out the rough edges even those caused by his actions. Cox, unlike the rest of the cast, had already performed in New York in the Off-Broadway production Incognito. The high point of Hiddleston’s and Cox’s acting comes in a charged scene at a restaurant. It is also one of a few scenes with the theatrical props in it. Notwithstanding some humorous flare brought in by the Eddie Arnold, Waiter, the tension gets to the extreme.
While trying to delicately convey her love for both men, Zawe Ashton’s Emma is relegated to support the more compelling acting by Hiddelton and Cox.
The production was extremely well received in London. The Guardian review stressed “the play’s psychological intricacy” and elevated power of acting. Now the New York theater-lovers get their chance to savor the great performance art!
Betrayal runs for 90 minutes without intermission. Click below for tickets at 56% off.
Date: until December 8, 2019
Venue: Bernard B. Jacob Theater, 242 W 45th St, New York, NY 10036
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