Norwich Eye reviews Betrayal at Sewell Barn Theatre

Photos supplied by Sewell Barn Theatre

The Sewell Barn Company have picked a winner with their latest production, Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, directed here by Clare Howard. While it is a renowned work it can be challenging to perform. Pinter is known for the staccato delivery of terse, often monosyllabic dialogue sometimes full of apparent non-sequiturs, yet mirroring closely the way people do actually talk to each other when they are familiar or close. Pinter’s scripts initially seem blunt and abrasive, but soon draw you in with their economy of phrase and subtle wit.

Verity Roat as Emma and Steven Scase as Jerry in Betrayal

Betrayal has a cast of four but is essentially a three-hander looking at the affair between Emma (Verity Roat) and her lover Jerry (Steven Scase) and his best friend and her husband Robert (John Davis). The fourth character is a waiter (Robin Watson) who appears in just one scene, although Robin also appears often with Stage Manager Joanna Fisher as they carry out the many carefully choreographed set changes. . The scenes of the play reverse real time, we start at the end of the affair and see the three a little bit earlier each time until the final scene shows the start of the affair.

The action of the play is set between 1968 and 1977 and reflects the time well, a time when there was rapid social change and pleasure took prominence over the rigid social codes of behaviour that had governed all our lives previously. For the English middle classes, where this play is firmly ensconced, it was a time for sexual adventure for both women and men with considerable disregard for the hurt and damage that inevitably follows infidelity and betrayal. Pinter however gives us a very accurate picture of how these matters were all framed within a polite and constrained dialogue, where showing real emotions seems unacceptable while dishonesty and deception are commonplace.

Pinter drew upon his own experience, as he had had a seven year affair with TV presenter Joan Bakewell while married to actress Vivien Merchant and around the time of Betrayal being first performed had left Merchant (with some overlap) to live with his later second wife Antonia Fraser. There is much knowledgeable detail of the banal practicality of the affair, the rented flat used only in afternoons, the conversation skirting around the bitter truths they all know and the panic over leaving clues to deception.

This production is superbly acted and greatly enhanced by the clever choice of popular and familiar tunes to bridge the gaps between scenes where the set is reconfigured. The characters are dressed with some precision to reflect both the date of the scene and the stage of the affair. Each actor handles well the duplicity and deception that their choices have obliged them to practice, while the reverse order gives the audience an inside knowledge that makes some scenes even more squirmingly toe-curling. Verity, Steven and John each have the sleek attractiveness of the thirty-something success story, while also portraying the liberal moral flexibility of those in the cultural industries which thrived at the time.

The joy of Pinter’s clipped dialogues is that there is not a single wasted word or any space filling flummery in this show, keeping our attention keen and leaving us wanting more, in contrast with some theatrical works where I can barely wait for the freedom of the final curtain. Forty four years old, the script has aged well even though we have had huge changes in social and sexual mores since it was first performed. This show predates the ravages of AIDS/HIV and is long before #MeToo and contemporary views on gender roles.

The Sewell Barn Company have created a beautifully crafted and memorable production of this popular work which comfortably bears comparison with professional productions with a hundred times their budget. Every component, including set design and costumes as well as the performance create a whole greater than the sum of the parts, and I recommend that you book and enjoy this show.

Betrayal by the Sewell Barn Theatre is on at the Barn 24-26 & 30 November and 1-3 December at 7.30pm, with a Matinée on 3 December at 2.30pm. Go to www.sewellbarn.org for more information and tickets.