Viva Lewes Issue #138 March 2018

ON THIS MONTH: THEATRE
Betrayal
But who’s betraying who?
Photo of Chris Parke (as Jerry) by Keith Gilbert
To begin with, the working title for the play was
‘Unsolicited Manuscript’. And then, because a
crucial scene is set in Venice, it became ‘Torcello’.
Later it was ‘White Wedding’. But before that,
it had been ‘Betrayal’, and, eventually, ‘Betrayal’
it became. Certainly there are many and varied
types of betrayal going on in Harold Pinter’s
play that the Lewes Little Theatre are presenting,
forty years on from its opening night at the
National Theatre on 15th November, 1978.
Jerry, a literary agent, is married to Judith, a
doctor. They have two children, Sam and Sarah.
Jerry’s ‘best and oldest’ friend is Robert, a publisher,
married to Emma. Again, two children,
Charlotte and Ned. But oh dear, Emma and Jerry
are having an affair. And by the time Robert finds
out about it, it’s already been going on for five
years. They’ve even set up a love nest in Kilburn.
So, Emma is betraying Robert. Jerry is betraying
Judith. The subject of a new novel that Emma is
reading in Venice, represented by Jerry’s agency,
turned down by Robert, may be betrayal. Robert
believes so. Emma disagrees. But then, as Robert
concedes, he may have been ‘thinking of the
wrong book’. And we’re soon told that Robert
has been betraying Emma, in serial infidelities,
for donkey’s years. So, myriad betrayals, and yet
it would seem that for Pinter the chief betrayal is
Robert knowing about Jerry’s affair with his wife,
and withholding that knowledge from Jerry.
The play is told in reverse, so none of this account
is really giving anything away. Apart from
a rather dumb Italian waiter in one scene (not in
Venice) the only three characters who appear are
Robert, Emma and Jerry.
When the play opened it was rather panned by
the critics. Pinter’s excursion into North West
London adultery was thought to be, how can
one put this, a betrayal of the highly individual,
edgy worlds that he had created in such plays
as The Homecoming and No Man’s Land. But
over the years the play’s standing in the Pinter
canon has improved considerably. Even Michael
Billington, one of its chief detractors when it
opened, has recanted.
And perhaps even Joan Bakewell has forgiven
Pinter. It’s been well known for some time now
that Betrayal was closely based on her years-long
affair with the playwright when he was married
to his first wife, the actress Vivien Merchant.
Not something we perhaps needed to know.
As someone observed at the time, it’s rather
like finding out that Hedda Gabler is based on
Valerie Singleton.
A diary entry in Antonia Fraser’s book Must You
Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter reads: ‘Harold
told Joan about Betrayal in the Ladbroke Arms.
She is “in a state of shock”. He always knew this
was going to be quite a meeting. Me, idiotically:
“Apart from that, did she like the play?” Harold:
“That would be like asking Mrs Lincoln the same
question.” I am a fool.’ David Jarman
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