MÓDULO DE LECTURA

Subject: TEATRO INGLÉS S. XIX Y XX

Code: 14227 group: B

NPA: CL46706 Mª JOSEFA GÓMEZ GARCÍA

Harold Pinter. Betrayal. Editorial Faber and Faber copy from reprografía. First presented in London on 15 November1978.

Dramatis personae:

Emma: 38 years old. Very self-confident woman. Middle class. She runs an Art

Gallery

Jerry: 40 years old man. He feels a bit guilty from betraying his best friend. Middle

class. He is a books publisher.

Robert: 40 years old man. He is Emma’s husband. He has a very British attitude

towards live. He is Jerry’s partner in the publishing business.

Plot

The plot tells us an affair that lasted seven years between two persons which were married with somebody else. Emma is married with Robert and has the affair with Jerry, who is the business partner and best fiend of Robert. Jerry is married with Judith. It gives us images of this affair going back in time. The play starts in the present time in 1977 and it finishes nine years earlier in 1968. He omits some of the periods, but he gives us a clear idea of when the affair started, (in 1968), when they did enjoy the most (1971-74) and when it finished (1975). The play starts in a pub. Emma, two years after their affair has finished arranges to meet Jerry. She has just found out that her husband, Robert has an affair with another woman. Their marriage is about to end. She wants to speak about it with Jerry. In the following scenes we travel to the past and see through their romance to the very beginning

Space

It all happens in many different spaces. Scene one starts in a pub. Scene two in Jerry’s house study. Scene three is in the flat in Wessex Grove where Emma and Jerry meet. Scene four takes place in Robert and Emma’s living room. Scene five happens in a Hotel room in Venice. Scene six goes on in the flat at Wessex Grove again. Scene seven comes about in a restaurant. Scene eight back in the flat and finally scene nine in the bedroom at Robert and Emma’s house.

None of these spaces is described in the stage directions so it is up to the director their lay-out.

Time

It keeps going from the present to the past. Till we end up about nine years earlier.

Other aspects

I think that it would be quiet costly production if the director wants to recreate all the different spaces in detail.

Personal opinion

I find interesting the way that he tell us the whole story going backwards in time. Also how he describes the different attitudes towards unfaithfulness, while Jerry is feeling guilty Emma does not seem to feel any guilt.