Off Broadway West Theatre Co. to Present Harold Pinter's BETRAYAL, 6/20-7/20

Betrayal is enjoying a revival on the East Coast and Off Broadway West Theatre Company is delighted to present the revival of this great classic here on the West Coast, as our first full production after a year's hiatus of successful staged readings. Marriage infidelity has never been as prevalent as it is in today's society, and is a subject that always bears inspection.

The play begins in 1977, with a meeting between adulterous lovers, Emma and Jerry, two years after their affair has ended. It ends, as we move back in time through the nine scenes of the play, in the house of Emma and her husband Robert, who is also Jerry's best friend. Brilliantly simple in form and courageous in its search for a poetry that turns banality into a melancholy beauty, BETRAYL 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.

Born in London in 1930, Harold Pinter, a renowned playwright and screenwriter, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. The selection committee described Pinter as a writer who in his plays, uncovered the precipice under everyday prattle and forced entry into oppression's closed rooms. Inspired in part by Samuel Beckett, he created his own distinctive style, marked by terse dialogue and meaningful pauses. In 1978, Pinter brought to the stage one of his best-regarded works, BETRAYAL. This tale of infidelity and marital meltdown seemed to reflect the writer's life in some ways, as his marriage dissolved allowing him to marry his lover of many years in 1980. Pinter succumbed to cancer and died on December 24, 2008

Directed by Richard Harder, Artistic Director, Off Broadway West Theatre Company

BETRAYAL begins previews on Thursday, June 20 and opens Friday, June 21, with a closing date of July 20. Performances are set for at Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8 pm at The Phoenix Theatre, Suite 601, 414 Mason Street (between Geary and Post), San Francisco.

Tickets are $20-40 (TBA, Senior/Student, Group discounts available), for advance sales, visitwww.offbroadwaywest.org or call (800)838-3006.

BETRAYAL stars Keith Burkland*, James Centofanti, Sylvia Kratins, and Brian O'Conner. *This actor appears with the special permission of Actors' Equity Association.

Off Broadway West Theatre Company is an award-winning non-profit theatre company in its seventh season continuing its mission to provide the Bay Area theatre community with plays that engage and challenge without forgetting to entertain.

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