Betrayal

Harold Pinter

Jan 2014 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

“One of the most essential artists produced by the twentieth century. Pinter’s work gets under our skin more than that of any living playwright.” —New York Times

Upon its premiere at the National Theatre, Betrayal was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. It won the Olivier Award for best new play, and has since been performed all around the world and made into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, and Patricia Hodge. Betrayal begins with a meeting between adulterous lovers, Emma and Jerry, two years after their affair has ended. During the nine scenes of the play, we move back in time through the stages of their affair, ending in the house of Emma and her husband Robert, Jerry’s best friend.

“[Betrayal] deals with the shifting balance of power in triangular relationships, and with the pain of loss. . . . Pinter probes the corrosive nature of betrayal . . . a world where pain and loss are explored with poetic precision.” —Guardian

“Betrayal is an exquisite play, brilliantly simple in form and courageous in its search for a poetry that turns banality into a melancholy beauty.” —Newsweek

“There is hardly a line into which desire, pain, alarm, sorrow, rage or some kind of blend of feelings has not been compressed, like volatile gas in a cylinder less stable than it looks . . . The play's subject is not sex, not even adultery, but the politics of betrayal and the damage it inflicts on all involved.” —Times (UK)

About the author

Harold Pinter (1930-2008) is one of the twentieth century’s most highly recognized dramatists. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the David Cohen British Literature Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature, and the Laurence Olivier Award for a lifetime’s achievement in theatre, as well as many other honors. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, No Man’s Land, and Betrayal.