By Sasha Schechter

Betrayal, written by Harold Pinter and directed by faculty member Paul Moser, opened in Little Theater last weekend.  The show starred Emma Walton ’10 (Emma), Donnie Sheldon ’10 (Robert), and Josh Christian ’10 (Jerry).

Harold Pinter is a Nobel Laureate, and is certainly one of the most influential playwrights in recent history.  He wrote Betrayal in 1978 based off of real-life experiences, and it is considered to be one of his greatest works.  Paul Moser directed this senior honors project spearheaded by Emma Walton.

To an actor, Pinter’s neutral dialogue acts as a bare canvass, on which he or she can create a character that best suits their acting style.  In this production, Robert’s subtle, sinister ways combined with Jerry’s awkward guffaws and mixed with Emma’s nervous-yet-cool composure to create a production that toyed with its audience’s emotions and built suspense in a play that is written to move backwards in time.

The set was sparse, made up of rehearsal cubes and block furniture; there were limited props, no liquid in the liquor bottles, and the lighting design was straightforward ‘up’ and ‘down.’  While the simplicity highlighted the story and the acting over everything else, the lack of liquid in their drinking glasses made it difficult to gage just how much the characters were consuming.  It was hard to imagine how they weren’t intoxicated to the point of not functioning.

Perhaps there were a few too many drinks consumed, or an overabundance of awkward guffaws, but neither of these things managed to make me dislike this production.  The actors showed remarkable skill in portraying their characters, and, despite having read the play only a few days before seeing it, they managed to keep me on the edge of my seat to the very end.

Sheldon’s performance as Robert had so many levels that he never seemed to run out of information to share with the audience.  He used every moment on stage – from the way he sat in his chair, to the way he raised a drinking glass to his mouth – to relay more information about himself and the story.  His character choices provided rich subtext to the plot, and he elicited a broad range of reactions from the audience.

Walton, who chose this play as her honors project, showed a thorough understanding of the production’s structure and overall intention.  With no visual indication that time was moving backwards – only a note in the playbill – the audience would have been lost if not for Walton’s skilled capacity to lessen her character’s knowledge from scene to scene.  The audience looked to Walton for confirmation of what we should or shouldn’t know from scene to scene, and she never let us down.

Christian’s Jerry was simultaneously adorable and slimy.  We never knew just how to feel about him, and if at any point his character seemed clear cut, he would do or say something that made us doubt his intentions.  In particular, any time a game of squash came up, Christian’s eyes would bug, and keep the audience in a frenzied guessing game as to whom he would actually play squash with–Robert? Or perhaps Casey?–and what exactly playing squash means to these people.

Sheldon, Walton, and Christian worked together to create tangible tension, evident in every word.  Between Pinter’s writing and the hard work put into this production, Betrayal was a down to earth show that glorified action over technology and design.  It was a breath of fresh air amongst flashing strobe lights and projector screens. Honors projects like these show the strength of the department’s training and of the students’ work.