Betrayal at the Pinter Theatre in London.
(L-R): Charlie Cox and Tom Hiddleston in Betrayal.
Tom Hiddleston makes a steely and terrifying jilted husband in the West
End revival of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, running through June 8th at the Pinter in London. Wielding a jagged smile like a switchblade, Hiddleston’s
Robert Downs is the standout feature in Jamie Lloyd’s production of the 1978
play, a tale of infidelity that plays out in reverse over seven years. Charlie Cox of Netflix’s Daredevil is his best friend, Jerry, who carried out a years-long
affair with Robert’s wife, Emma (Zawe Ashton).
Beginning with the revelation that Robert has known about the affair for
four years and moving backward to Jerry and Emma’s first drunken kiss in the
back room of a party, Betrayal is
Pinter’s strongest and most efficiently economical play, and Lloyd’s
triumphantly minimalistic staging more than gives it its due.
Most of Betrayal’s tension
plays on the audience’s knowing that Robert knows everything even as Emma and
Jerry dissemble. (Thus those deathly
smiles.) That’s why it works so well
that all three powerhouse actors are on-stage together almost throughout the
run of the play – even in scenes when Emma and Jerry are alone, Robert looms in
the background, leaning stiffly against a wall and watching. It’s a play full of Pinter’s trademarked
pauses, and much of its strength rests on what isn’t said; Hiddleston, again,
makes the most of this, with his set jaw and wounded eyes, and feels dynamic
even though most of his scenes are played sitting down and unmoving.
Lloyd choreographs his three
leads in a sinuous ballet with two interlocking turntables (always moving – you
guessed it – counterclockwise) against Soutra Gilmour’s stark, faux-marble
set. Three walls expand and contract to
create the restaurants, secret apartments, and family parties where the affair
is played out, and the terrace in Venice where, in a hair-raising scene, it is
uncovered. It’s a simple staging that
reveals what’s elemental about the play.
Jerry, Emma, and Robert bandy about banalities about books and squash,
but there’s something dark and terrifying pulsating under the surface. The strength of this production is that you
can always feel that dark secret straining to burst through.
Among the most haunting moments in the play is the second scene, in which
Robert smoothly informs Jerry he’s planning on divorcing Emma. Lost and befuddled, Jerry mutters, “We used
to like each other,” to which Robert coolly replies, “We still do.” When Jerry begs to know how Robert can be so
unconcerned, Hiddleston replies, in molasses tones, “You don’t seem to
understand. I don’t give a shit about
any of this.” Neither Lloyd nor Pinter
hint about the territory Robert has traversed to come to this point, but
leaving it to the audience to guess is, if anything, more affecting. The horror of moving from the human to the unfeeling
is the ultimate betrayal of self, which is the betrayal this play and
production ultimately seeks to depict.
