Pinter's 'Betrayal' Examines Well What is Not Said

Harold Pinter's play about an extra marital affair at the Rep doesn't always shine but Pinter is still always engaging.  The show tells the story of a young British couple in the 1970's and their illicit affair told from beginning to end.  Or rather, the play in this case is told from end to beginning.  The show begins with Emma (Cheyenne Casebier) and Jerry (David Christopher Wells) meeting one last time, at the flat where their affair took place for 9 years, to say goodbye and settle things once and for all.  From there we keep looking back over the events of the previous years to discover the events that led to the inevitable demise of the relationship.  Over the course of their journey we occasionally also see things from the point of view of Emma's Husband, Robert (Alex Podulke), who happens to be Jerry's best friend and business colleague.

Now, in our world of TV shows like "Cheaters" and "Jerry Springer", cheating spouses are a little more commonplace.  But don't expect any flying chairs or eye gouging here.  The play takes a stark look at the subtle and guarded emotions of these proper Brits with Pinter's usual introspective approach.  His economy for words and trademark use of pauses and awkward silences leaves the audience to interpret for themselves what these characters are going through.  Much of the story here is in the pauses.  This is probably why so many actors and directors love Pinter, not to get to say his words but to discover the subtext in the pauses between the words.  A prime example was at the beginning of the play when Jerry left the stage to get a drink leaving Emma to sit there in silence for upwards of a minute.  In any other show this might have been a bad bit of staging or the signs of an inexperienced playwright, but Pinter always gives you just enough information in the preceding dialogue, that these pauses give you the time to think over the emotion behind them, without ever being told what those emotions are. 

And yes, this show does make you think.  If shows like "Mamma Mia" are your dessert, then shows like this would be your veggies.  Dessert is all well and good but you need your veggies and more substantial shows in order to have a well rounded theatrical diet.  Candy is nice but if that's all you eat then that's all you are.

The production at the Rep does not "Wow!"  But does a Pinter play ever "Wow"?  He makes you work for what you take away from it.  And the director (Braden Abraham) and cast do a fine job in lending themselves to your interpretation.  Abraham weaves his cast well in an out of Pinter's pauses, keeping the story moving along without ever having the pauses become so awkward that the audience begins to giggle.  The timing here is flawless.  Casebier and Wells as the couple having the affair are quite enjoyable.  They never reduce themselves to stereotypes of the good person or bad person.  They are just people who happen to be having an affair.  You judge if that is right or wrong.  But I felt that I was missing a bit of a character arc from these two over the years.  I didn't really see them grow or change over time until the end of the play (which remember is the beginning of their affair) where we saw two passionate people taking a bite of forbidden fruit.  The best performance came from the Husband, played deftly by Podulke.  In this role, Podulke really shows a brilliant arc of his character without ever losing the subtlety of his performance.  His character, I felt, was the best thought out and well developed of the production and it really shone through in his performance.  And thanks to Abraham and Podulke, the subtext kept flowing throughout.

All in all, it is a fine evening at the theater.  And with a run time of seventy-four minutes and no intermission, you can come from the theater feeling nourished and still have time to get home for a little "Mamma Mia".  So get to Rep and eat your veggies!

"Betrayal" runs at the Seattle Rep through March 22^nd.  For ticket reservations, call the Seattle Repertory Theatre box office seven days a week at (206) 443-2222 or toll-free at (877) 900-9285, or go online at www.seattlerep.org.

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