Betrayal

Written by Harold Pinter

Directed by Oded Salomy

At North House this weekend

WHO WANTS to spend a weekend watching disturbing drama? The week is disturbing enough. For those seeking comic relief, Harold Pinter's Betrayal, an unnerving look at sex and emotion in contemporary society, is not for you.

Betrayal chronicles an affair, in reverse. Beginning several years after the end of the affair and ending when it begins, the play provides an agonizing look at modern relationships. It is a minute examination of the deceit two lovers, Emma and Jerry, practice with their spouses, each other and themselves.

But the plot thickens. This is no ordinary affair, but one between a man and the wife of his best friend. Heard that one before? The play also suggest a homosexual relationship between the two friends, a suggestion which this production makes overt.

Despite the melodramatic overtones of its premise, Betrayal develops into a complex and challenging drama, with carefully controlled language and characterizations. The North House production, though not flawless, certainly draws the audience into the emotional dilemmas of the love triangle.

The two partners in Betrayal's deceit are Emma (played by Jill Rachel Morris) and Jerry (Danny Vanderryn). Morris, who has much of the finesse and all of the wardrobe which the part requires, nonetheless gives a spotty performance. In some scenes, she performs with passionate intensity; in others, particularly the opening scene, she delivers her lines with remarkable flatness. Morris fails to convey the difference between being cold and being unemotional. But she does succeed in capturing the play's bitter spirit, in drawing the audience into the problems of the relationship.

Vanderryn, on the other hand, gives a consistently weak performance. His stage presence is awkward, not because he is so much taller than the other characters in the play, but because he simply does not seem to know what to do with himself. His lines are forced and unnatural, especially in his scenes alone with Emma. Overall, he is an actor of extremes--he either overacts or underacts.

Kevin Kain plays Robert, husband of Emma and Jerry's best friend. If his performance cannot be called refreshing, that is only because of the emotionally draining play, not his acting. Kain captures his character perfectly--he is cold and snide and suspicious, and real. His best moment occurs when he tries to force Emma to admit her affair to him. Kain realizes the torturing potential of his lines and brings the darts of Pinter's allusions into clear and cold focus.

Into this dreary drama, Tina Higgins injects some much needed energy and comic relief in the small role of an Italian waitress. She has a wonderfully expressive face and a fine Italian accent.

The play's direction is, on the whole, intelligent and, unexaggerated. Director Oded Salomy avoids the difficulties posed by the script's Britishisms by setting his version in Boston rather than Pinter's London suburbs. The two lovers meet in a house in Belmont, instead of Wessex, and the two men bring speakers to Harvard and Yale, not Oxford and Cambridge. The flat does not need Hoovering, it needs vacuuming.

Furthermore, the characters do not need to attempt English accents because the play takes place in America. This saves the production from a distraction which could have been fatal.

The Holmes Hall Living Room provides space enough for Betrayal's many scene changes, which do not disrupt the flow of the play. The sets are not spectacular--a frugal bedroom, a two-table restaurant, and a couch, chair and table for a living room--but they are not meant to be.

The North House staging of Betrayal may lack the refinement of a professional production or the 1982 film, but despite a few flaws, the show provides an excellent opportunity to see poignant drama in action.