Betrayal

Published Friday 22 August 2008 at 12:50 by John di Folco

Often referred to as accessible - whatever that means - Betrayal is a chilling and clinical paring away at the layers of a long-standing relationship, now decidedly dead, between Jerry and Emma.

At the point we meet them, they are having a nostalgic tete-a-tete in a pub. Emma has cuckolded her publisher husband, Robert, for seven years and he is Jerry’s best friend. So, this will be an autopsy with a twist and added dimension.

What makes Michael Emans’ beautifully structured and handsomely staged production so engrossing is how he balances the play’s essential objectivity - no moral judgements here, please - while drawing us into a love triangle taut with human frailty and dissatisfaction. At the same time, he effectively highlights flashes of wit and humour in the bleak mood of the play and allows the silences in the lean dialogues to crackle with their own eloquence and irony as the action flips back in time from the beginning of the affair to the first stolen embrace.

They are an odd trio, though, with tightly confined emotional reaches. As Jerry, Paul Albertson oozes a casual, languid indifference to his former lover, barely recollecting memories she’s so eager to hold on to. Clare Swinburne’s Emma is exquisitely poised, hovering between the love and joy in the scenes with Jerry and the despair and pain of her failed marriage. As Robert, David Tarkenter brings a seething edgy sense of injury and misogyny to the role, as well as a hint of sexual ambiguity. Superbly crafted performances all round.