I can just as easily give it 2 stars, but I'm allowing for the possibility that it's better as a live performance.

Pinter could have named this play What?, due to how many times his characters ask that question. They come across as either really dense, or as suffering from some serious ADD. He was probably trying to say something with this kind of dialog, but he was too subtle for my liking. It just came off as annoying.

I was struck by the seeming indifference of Emma and Robert to their marriage. The cheating and not caring if the other person cheats smacks of moral bankruptcy and soullessness to me. Though it's probably my own interpretation more than anything Pinter was trying to communicate.

The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter.  Part of a great class I had in college on "modern British and American drama," from an excellent teacher. Really made me appreciate a lot of fine modern plays.  (Though not even Dr. Raedel could make me like Samuel Beckett.  Sorry, Dr. Raedel.)

 

My mother kept asking me how I was doing in the class, and she kept being frustrated because I could only say "I don't know: 40% is the final exam, which we haven't taken yet, and the other 60% is the paper, which hasn't been turned in yet."  (It was no worries, though - I got an A in the class.)

This probably works better on the stage than it does on the page. Frankly, I was disappointed.

 

True to its title, Betrayal is a story about betrayal and deception. The play is centered on three people: Emma, Robert, and Jerry. Emma, who is married to Robert, has had a long-term affair with Robert's best friend Jerry. The opening scene is of Emma and Jerry meeting for a drink two years after their affair has ended. The play then works its way chronologically backwards in time, feeding us more details of their tangled relationships with each new scene.

 

The play provides a perspective into the way in which we might betray and deceive others, as well as the way in which we might betray and deceive ourselves. I thought it was an interesting look at the attempt to hold onto relationships even though they might not fulfill us or make us happy. Fear of change? Habit? Routine? Boredom? It was interesting watching the characters stumble through their relationships, sometimes as if on automatic pilot.

 

The best aspect of the play was in how it was structured: in reverse order from the end of the affair to the very beginning. I thought that was truly well done. In fact, what I found so interesting was how the characterizations were developed. By providing you with the ending first, the author allows you to make judgments about these characters, then challenges those judgments by providing more and more insight into their past.

 

Still, despite these interesting elements, I thought that overall the story was unremarkable.

 

Final Rating: 3 stars