Harold Pinter's Betrayal:The Patterns of Banality

Abstract

Harold Pinter's latest play, Betrayal, first produced in the fall of 1978 at the National Theatre in London under the direction of Peter Hall, bears many of the marks that one has been led to expect in a Pinter work . There are the familiar, long pauses between statements, the questions offered in response to questions, the limited dialogue - seventy-five questions and 1500 words in the thirty-one pages ofScene One. Yet the play is a definite departure for Pinter. Gone are the carefully formed innuendoes, the sinister ambiguities, the impending disasters those elements which led critics to label Pinter plays "comedies of menace." No Riley appears in the last scene to dislodge characters from their rooms, no McCann and Goldberg to interrogate, no Mick to threaten. Instead, presented in reverse chronological order, the play concentrates on nine rather prosaic scenes depicting marital infidelity: Emma, married to Robert, has an affair with Jerry, Robert's best friend.