Betrayal was first performed at the National Theatre in November 1978, directed by Peter Hall and starring Michael Gambon, Penelope Wilton, and Daniel Massey. The play is based loosely on Pinter’s own affair with Joan Bakewell and tells the story of an adulterous triangle — Robert, his wife Emma, and his best friend Jerry — in reverse chronological order, beginning in 1977 (two years after the affair has ended) and working backward to 1968 (the moment it began).
The reverse structure is the play’s masterstroke: because the audience knows how things will end, every scene is charged with dramatic irony. The tender beginning of the affair — the declaration of love in a bedroom during a party, the hopeful plans — is devastating because we already know the bitterness, the lying, the gradual erosion of feeling that will follow. The structure also reveals the layers of deception: we learn gradually that Robert knew about the affair long before he admitted knowing, that Jerry was deceived about Robert’s knowledge, that Emma was deceiving both men simultaneously.
The language is Pinter’s most restrained: short sentences, long pauses, conversations that circle around what cannot be said. The famous “silences” carry enormous weight — moments when characters know something they cannot acknowledge, or refuse to ask questions whose answers they fear. The play is sometimes described as Pinter’s most “accessible” work, but its emotional complexity is as great as any of his more experimental plays.
Collecting Betrayal
First edition (Eyre Methuen, London, 1978): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $50–$150
- Without jacket: $15–$35
- Signed copies: $200–$500