Betrayal

After three straight weeks where playwrights went out of their way to put performance qualities of dialect and emphasis and emotion into the text, the late Harold Pinter's Betrayal is a splash of cold water to the face. It's so spare, so cold, so blank on the page. There is dialog, there is the barest of essential stage actions, and there is the Pinter Pause ... and that's it.

I've acted in Pinter, and directed Pinter. My faulty memory aside, I'm told by my better half that I've even seen this very play at The National on our honeymoon. But I've never felt comfortable with Pinter, always found it difficult to read. I tend to read them in monotone, with very subdued emotion. It's all tension and menace and edge. His looming presence intimidates, as if any inflection other than po-faced seriousness will destroy the delicate equilibrium like playing Beethoven with a kazoo. There is nothing to indicate emotion in the text, no "(with anger)" or "(they laugh)" .... and it seems terribly gauche to add it in.

But then I get to scene four of Betrayal, and the extended discussion of whether boy or girl babies cry more. There's no indication of style or tone, but it's utterly absurd to take this as anything other than two old friends playing and riffing and joking ... isn't it? Surely this scene has life and laughs layered on top of the tension ... right? But there is that temptation to subdue the impulse, and not get in the way of Pinter. I wonder how many productions play that scene as "absurd" or are afraid to treat it with anything other than precision and reverence. In fact, that's the key. If you can layer unscripted emotion and life on top of that scene, why not do it in all the rest? Why not have fun with Pinter, and not let the received wisdom about his style get in the way of doing the job of acting?

When thinking about those famous, calculated pauses in Pinter it seems that he doesn't quite trust his actors. But the blankness of his scripts point another way: that he scores the important beats in his work, but ultimately trusts his actors completely. I need to read Pinter differently.

3 comments:

February 9, 2009 at 10:07 AM April Fossen said...

We did see it. And the humor in that production was kind of a revelation to me about Pinter. I haven't read anything of his the same way since seeing that. And I think you're right. I think he gives the basics and trusts the actors to fill it with life.

February 11, 2009 at 10:33 AM Melissa said...

I agree with April about directing and acting Pinter. With the single exception of Beckett, treating texts with reverence gets you into immediate trouble onstage. Shakespeare and Pinter are the worst, in my opinion-- people treat them as delicate historical artifacts that will crumble if breathed upon, as opposed to the living, bloody texts they are.

That said, I'm not a huge Pinter fan, to be honest. It would be a fun challenge to direct because, like Shakespeare, there's so much room, but, unlike Shakespeare, I just don't find the stories (or any of the female characters) compelling. I think he's most interesting in historical context. Pinter starts writing during the cold war-- there's your unseen, omnipresent menace right there-- and that really spoke to people at the time. Shortly after that we began to look at human relationships in a different way as well-- the idea of emotional connection and disconnection as opposed to functional relationships starts emerging as a topic of interest in the general public.

The process and stress of menace, of disconnection, of betrayal in all its many forms-- of trust, safety, protection, promise-- is something, esp after Bush, we're very very used to, and are now framing the experience in different ways, I think. Pinter was the first (sorta) to lay that out there. We've already seen it and lived it for long enough that we've moved on in our discussion, I think. Just my opinion . . . . I'm sure there are many out there who disagree with me.

March 4, 2009 at 11:32 PM Unknown said...

I open this play and it sucks me in, chews me up, and spits me out. The pauses act less as speed bumps and more as emotional catapults.

I have three friends (two married, one crippled) that I would love to direct in this piece with a cameo by the director (because someone has to play the waiter).

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