Spring, 1977. Emma and Jerry meet in a bar for the first time in two years. They are hesitant, searching for the right words, uncomfortable because it has been so long. The history between them is felt in the minimalist back-and-forth, even as they cannot look each other in the eye.
Emma has
finally been honest with her husband, Robert, about her affair with Jerry, who
was best man at their wedding. Jerry is stunned by the news. After keeping it
secret for so long, he thought they could move on. Robert is his best friend,
after all. They still see each other for lunch. They play squash together. Why
did she need to tell him after all this time?
The love
triangle as dramatic conceit is as old as drama and the trope continues to add tension
to rom-coms, even when we know exactly who is going to end up with whom. In
Harold Pinter’s play, Betrayal, he isn’t very interested in speculation.
It’s all about deconstruction. A post-mortem of a relationship and the lies
people tell to the people they love.
After a
brief interlude with Robert and Jerry after the revelations of the first scene –
they talk as much about publishing and their work as they do about Emma, the
rest of the play proceeds backwards in time. Regressing through Emma’s affair
with Jerry and relationship with her abusive husband, moving toward the moment
when the lies began.
Because we
know where everything is headed, we aren’t on the edge of our seats hoping for
things to work out somehow. The tension is in how three
pairs of relationships break, bend and fall apart. It’s a beautifully crafted script.
Piercing, probing and partly autobiographical for Pinter.
Thursday’s
Child – the indie theatre company formed by performer Michaela Bedel and
director Rachel Baring – first came together for a production of Patricia
Cornelius’ Slut in 2020. That text is bracing and the production was
tight; a kick in the guts.
I thought Betrayal
was a surprising choice for their second show, because it was so different from
the contemporary feminist text of the company’s debut. This play is dated, not
because analysis of a triptych of relationships isn’t still relevant, but
because of some of the language and the attitudes, particularly towards spousal
abuse. And the fact they still send love letters. Baring and the company have
found ways to amplify certain aspects of the text to make this show very
resonant with the present moment.
The character
of Emma doesn’t have much agency, really. Both men are manipulating her in
different ways, sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit. Bedel does bring an inner
strength to her though, smiling through the pain and finding subtle ways to
stand her ground, even as she has no real way to shift her circumstances.
Gabriel
Partington’s Jerry tries to exude confidence while also appearing to be a
bundle of nerves. The subtle shake as he reconnects with Emma in the first
scene is beautifully handled. Jerry is the more exuberant of the men, allowing
Partington more scope to embody a dynamic physical presence.
Heath
Ivey-Law’s Robert is a much more reserved, push-it-all-down Brit, making the
character inscrutable a lot of the time. Ivey-Law slowly peels back these
layers and where once the friendship between Robert and Jerry might have read
simply as men who like each other more than their wives, this production suggests the audience might question Robert’s sexuality. He’s still
deliberately predatory though, but is his anger built on a foundation of repressed
sexuality? It’s a fascinating wrinkle in the dynamic.
While the
play itself is not shy about exposing the flaws of these men, this production
puts them under a microscope. A rush of enthusiasm from Jerry late in the play,
at the inception of his relationship with Emma, now clearly reads like “love
bombing” rather than a truly romantic moment.
On opening
night, there were some stumbles over the script, and while Pinter prescribes a
lot of his famous pauses, I wasn’t always sure the silences were intentional. The actors are sure to find their feet during the run and these
moments will all be smoothed out.
Baring’s direction is very precise, creating tight spaces to trap these characters, while they grapple with each other in the defining and redefining of their relationships. Ella Firns’ set and costume design are stylish, evoking the 1970s without taking it too far.
The sound
design is evocative – music in a restaurant, a bar, or Venice, with a hint of
atmospheric noise – but on occasion it felt like a crutch; its almost constant
presence was just a tad much.
Betrayal is a classic play with a lot of
weight and meaning. These theatremakers know we have ways of relating to these
characters in 2025 that didn’t exist in 1978 and this production brings new
life to Pinter’s words in surprising ways.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The play is on at Chapel off Chapel until May 25
Photos: Shay Bedel
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