Betrayal

Reverse love triangle

Betrayal (1978) by the English writer and Nobel prize-winner Harold Pinter is a virtuoso play and classic about a love triangle. We presented the versions by Tg STAN and by Peter van Kraaij & Toneelgroep Amsterdam in recent years, and we are very happy to present another staging this season by the Turkish-Belgian theatre-maker Mesut Arslan.  

For seven years Emma has been deceiving Robert with Jerry. Seven years summarised in nine scenes in which passion and mediocrity, lies and desires, deception and self-deception wage battle with one another. Pinter’s main dramaturgical intervention concerns the time sequence: Betrayal is told in reverse chronological order. The audience knows ‘how the story ends’. Arslan examines this aspect more deeply: man is not only betrayed by other people but also by time. In this way he raises a few pertinent questions. Can we also betray our memory? How does the subconscious work? This theme is emphasised even more in the installation by Lawrence Malstaf that forms the backdrop for the performance. Nine rotating walls form a labyrinth, a space that is constantly changing. Arslan’s Betrayal is a disorienting game of time, memory and space, both for the actors and you, the spectator. You can walk around freely on stage.

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