Left – Ursula Mills and Matt Zeremes. Cover – Guy Edmonds and Matt Zeremes. Photos – Clare HawleyThe passing of time has not diminished the power of Harold Pinter's script, Betrayal.
Beginning at the end of an affair and going backwards to retro chronicle the seven years Jerry and Emma have been carrying on their sexual subterfuge, Pinter creates an archaeological examination of a relationship, a dramatic dig where tiny details are discovered, sifted and exhibited.
Emma is married to Robert, Jerry's best friend, who was best man at heir wedding. Jerry is also married and like Emma and Robert has two children.
The affair, contrary to conjuring out of control carnality is more like a defacto bigamy, settling into a domestic parallel of Jerry and Emma's real homes, complete with crockery, cutlery, and Manchester.
And this production has taken that banality and decided to nest in it, playing more like a Noel Coward than a Harold Pinter. There is no mining of the famous Pinter menace, the paucity of pause replaced by a cracking pace. Nine scenes are presented in less than ninety minutes, no pause for an interval.
Ursula Mills plays Emma as a serial nester, a trophy wife for both the men, enjoying parenthood with one man, relishing respite from parenting with the other. Or so it seems.
Matthew Zeremes as Jerry and Guy Edmonds as the cuckold Robert are suitably smug in their alpha male high brow ways – both work in literary circles, Robert as a publisher and Jerry as a writer's agent.
Anna Gardiner's simple design features an annex in the apex of the stage, complete with cosy Barcelona couch, making it a neat nook for nookie. The foreground of the space is used for restaurant trysts and living room soirees. The triangular formation a metaphor for the trio's tangled relationship.
Directed by Mark Kilmurry, this production of Betrayal serves as a good recitation of one of Pinter's finest plays.
Ensemble Theatre presents
Betrayal
by Harold Pinter
Directed by Mark Kilmurry
Venue: Ensemble Theatre | 78 McDougall St, Kirribilli, NSW
Dates: 21 July – 20 August, 2016
Tickets: $66 – $73
Bookings: 02 9929 0644 | www.ensemble.com.au
