Betrayal Takes Two

Harold Pinter was a master of understated moments and subtext. His plays require the audience to engage emotionally and mentally with the characters in order to understand the meaning hidden in the words they're saying. That engagement is crucial in Betrayal, Pinter's three-character drama about an adulterous affair. Robert and Emma are married, and Jerry was Robert's best man at their wedding. Jerry and Emma have been carrying on together for five years. The play begins at the end, when Emma tells Jerry that she's confessed to Robert, and then recoils through time to the moment the affair began. It's a dark portrait of how love begins and dies, all at once and in reverse. The Washington University Performing Arts Department presents Betrayal at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday (March 27 through 30) in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre on the Washington University campus (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; 314-935-6543 or www.edison.wustl.edu). Tickets are $10 to $15.
Thursdays, Fridays, 8 p.m.; Sat., March 29, 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., March 30, 2 p.m. Starts: March 27. Continues through March 28, 2014