Review: Bleak but powerful drama at the Loft in Leamington

If you are after a high action piece of theatre that is full of fast-moving scenes and colour - this is not the play for you. But if you like clever, deep, emotional and thought-provoking drama, this take by the Loft on Harold Pinter’s highly acclaimed one act play is highly recommended.

Inspired by Pinter’s own extramarital affair with BBC presenter Joan Bakewell, Betrayal takes the audience on a backwards journey in time through the seven-year affair between Emma (Libby McKay) and Jerry (Dave Crossfield), the best friend of Emma’s not-so-likeable husband Robert (Richard Ely). We see Emma and Jerry meet several years after the affair has ended - and then step back to look at how it ended, when Robert found out about it and how it started.

Describing her experience of directing the work as “sublime”, director Sue Moore points out that Betrayal - which has only three main characters - features Pinter’s “characteristically economical dialogue” and his “Pinteresque pauses” that he is known to have said were actually “things unsaid”. While I found the opening scene extremely long and difficult to engage in, as the characters developed and I gained a greater understanding of their psyche, I came to see these long scenes as extremely powerful. Yes, there are many long pauses and the dialogue is slow and bleak, but this gives us time to ponder on what is really going in the minds of these tortured individuals and makes us wonder who knows what when.

While I see no evidence of passion between Emma and Jerry - apart from in the final scene - I imagine this is a deliberate direction on behalf of Moore. The passion that brought them together, I presume, has been gradually destroyed by their guilt and mistrust. The predicament is wholly negative and the lessons to be learnt are as clear as day.

Sundari Cleal