Harold Pinter’s Betrayal
has been revived on Broadway, the West End, or
wherever else many times since its debut in 1978. Not because it’s a great play, but because
actors love the challenge of it. Betrayal
is an interesting character piece, a study of intertwined relationships, with a
gimmick — a conceit, if you prefer — in which the playwright plays with our
perception of time as he manipulates his characters back in time.
Its three characters live backward before us, so that we see
(and the actors play) the end at the beginning all the way through, reverse
chronologically, to the beginning at the end of 75 or so minutes.
Mike Nichols is a
highly skilled director and the production presently playing to full houses at
the Barrymore is polished from curtain rise on 1977 back to 1968, with sets by Ian Macneil sliding in and up and out
and down, portraying places where these three characters live and love and
hate.
Pinter tells us in the very first scene everything that’s happened
and that therefore we are going to see, but that doesn’t keep us from watching
all the way through. It’s about how, not
what. Each time something is revealed,
we yearn to see what happened before that, and before that, and before….instead
of next, next, next. It’s a fascinating
conceit and it does work.
While Rafe Spall may
not yet be a star in the U.S.,
he will be. His besotted Jerry is a delight,
Jerry who is nothing special, whom one would pass by on the street, but who
inspires love in the other characters.
Mr. Spall’s lanky form curls and slopes and leans into and away from his
fellows. It’s impossible not to watch
him onstage, even when Daniel Craig
is beside him.
It is Jerry who is in most of the scenes, and even if he’s
not present, the other characters are thinking about him, so we are as
well. The second scene of the play,
between Jerry and Robert (Daniel Craig),
is beautifully staged, with the long estranged friends starting on opposite
sides of the room, crossing past each other’s territory, until the truth allows
them to become comfortable with one another again, sitting together. Gorgeous.
This immediately sets us up, as well, to not particularly like the woman
who came between them, Emma.
Despite the fact that Robert admits to having “bashed” her
once or twice, Emma (Rachel Weisz)
seems always in control of the relationship between herself and Jerry. Her only vulnerability shows when Jerry
leaves for America
and she breaks down in front of her husband, whom we’ve just learned knows
about his wife and his best friend.
Robert likes to play squash with his male friends and go to
the pub afterward, an afternoon and/or evening of all male companionship. No women.
We can tell he’s a terror on the court and he has noticed that the men
he knows or suspects are sleeping with his wife will no longer play squash with
him. He may not be Menelaus, but the
savage sometimes rears its head beside that of this cerebral man.
Of the three characters, Jerry is most breakable, most
childlike. Robert has built up a hard
shell, humorous when he oughtn’t be, seeming callous. Daniel
Craig makes it clear there’s much more going on than that.
I was surprised to find Rachel
Weisz, whom I quite like on film, to be the weakest link on stage. Pinter pauses are one thing, but her side of
the stage sometimes appeared, sounded, rather empty.
Stephen deRosa’s
delightful turn as the waiter in the Italian restaurant is as polished as the
three primary roles.
Pinter and the company stimulate our laughter at the
vagaries and vanities of human nature. An
intellectual play, Betrayal is not quite great, but it’s more than clever. It’s not easy to connect with these
characters however similar their stories may be to some of ours. Despite the tight and smart direction,
despite the performances, nothing about this production engaged me. The people did not engage me. So for all its clever mind games, my heart
was untouched.
The second Pinter play was one I’d
never seen before and which, although in chronological time, was by far the more
confusing of the two.
No Man’s Land is part of
a double bill with Waiting for Godot — which I look forward to seeing in a couple
weeks — with a highly anticipated cast: Patrick
Stewart and Ian McKellen
supported more than ably by Billy Crudup
and Shuler Hensley.
No Man’s Land, unlike Betrayal,
is played in chronological time. Note I
did not say “real time,” because this earlier effort of Harold Pinter is wilder, more
Beckettian. Two men are onstage,
and we know nothing about them except that one rarely speaks and the other
rarely stops talking. In the
grandiloquent role of Spooner, Ian
McKellen shines, glows, and takes flight.
As the quieter (for the first act) Patrick
Stewart is fascinating in his stillness and sudden spurts of drunken
energy. Mr. Stewart’s character Hirst is
falling down drunk but that does not deter him from heading for the drinks
cabinet. The babblefest continues until
the entrance of Billy Crudup as Foster,
the glibly dangerous younger man, self-appointed caretaker to Mr. Hirst along
with Shuler Hensley. This is typical Pinter, a couple of guys
menacing by their very presence. Foster
holds in his violence with enormous effort, which does not lessen his ability
to bully. Shuler Hensley’s Briggs, the more obvious bully, barely speaks
while holding himself at the ready. Mr.
Hensley is terribly still, emanating menace.
The second act gets even more
confusing with Hirst, now sober yet less than clear-headed, reminiscing with Spooner
while addressing him by another name. We
start to wonder if these two men who’d appeared to be strangers the night
before are now old … rivals? Surely not
friends. None of the confusion is down
to the direction by Sean Mathias,
which was crisp and clear, rhythmically moving from quickly paced to leisurely. It’s Pinter having fun with his audience
again.
Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in No Man's Land. |
The scenic and costume design by Stephen Brimson Lewis were perfect, lighting
(Peter Kaczorowski), music and sound
(Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen) all contributed to the
feelings of claustrophobia, menace, with a bit of “no way out” tossed in No Man’s Land is beautifully put
together. We may not understand what
happened in the second act any more than in the first, but with Pinter, we can
always just raise our eyebrows and say, Oh, well, it’s Pinter.
~
Molly Matera, signing off as the fall season really kicks into gear. So many plays, so little time….