Betrayal

BY HAROLD PINTER 

directed by Tawiah M’Carthy 

“first-rate Pinter…precisely crafted.” —Globe & Mail 

“a marvellous, multi-layered play…his most accessible and arguably his best” —British Theatre Guide “ 

…desire, pain, alarm, sorrow, rage…compressed, like volatile gas in a cylinder less stable than it looks.” —The Times of London 

Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter is renowned for his distinctive dramatic style: economy of language, potent pauses, and an undercurrent of menace. Betrayal—widely regarded as one of his best—unfolds in reverse—coolly dissecting a seven-year extramarital affair. 

It opens after the affair has ended then proceeds to track it from the final breakup to the first kiss. Encountering the aftermath before the initial spark, the audience becomes acutely aware of the fallout from every decision.  

WHY I CHOSE THIS PLAY  

Harold Pinter’s debut on the Belfry stage is long overdue—! One woman and her husband and lover are caught in a game of cat and mouse. Who’s wise to whom—and who will pay the price for their acts of betrayal—? I love the way every sentence, every word seems innocent on the surface, yet laden with tension below. Pinter is the master of simmering and intriguing drama.  — MS