SPECIAL EVENTS:
COMING SOON!
COMING SOON!
COMING SOON!
Join us on Zoom to read & discuss Pinter’s 1978 masterpiece
“BETRAYAL”
HAUNTING VISION
By now, Pinter is like a fortunate composer who writes for musicians familiar with every rhythm and tone. John Bury’s sets and lighting seem to hold the characters suspended in a luminous fatality. On opening night, things were somewhat nervous, but the preview performance also saw confirmed the tensile humour and humanity of the acting by Michael Gambon as Jerry, Daniel Massey as Robert and Penelope Wilton as Emma. Peter Hall’s direction is ravishing in its sensitivity - although on opening night he made Jerry a bit too drunk in the last scene. Jerry’s drunkenness reflects his intoxication with Emma; one false lurch can muddy that reflection. Betrayal is perhaps Pinter’s most deceptive play. Behind its smooth pastel surface is a haunting vision of man as a creature trapped in an orbit of betrayal that sends him circling around the ideal without ever reaching it.
Newsweek, 27 November 1978
