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BETRAYAL
BY
HAROLD PINTER

DRAMATIS PERSONAE Jerry ... Mike Nower Emma ... Sara Nower Robert ... Dean Hempstead Waiter ... Robin Winder Director ... Nick Gulvin

REVIEWS/NOTES PINTER’S Betrayal has become a classic. CTW’s confident, assured production, directed by Nick Gulvin, showed a less than equilateral love triangle, from dying embers back to the first spark. I liked the simple set, a truncated perspective with pictures changing with the years. Jerry was played by Mike Nower- cool, cynical and keeping his feelings well hidden most of the time. Emma, Sara Nower, was believable in every word and every gesture, a very polished performance. Less naturalistic, and perhaps the better for it, was Dean Hempstead’s Robert. His Torcello scene was one of the best aspects of the evening, at least until the moment of revelation. Robin Winder was the Italian waiter in one of the best stage meals I’ve seen in ages.“It’s nice sometimes to look back.” Yes, indeed, but we did rather come away thinking we’d seen three rather charming people whose love lives were a bit of a mess. We might have expected a reading where there was more of an undertow of menace, where people don’t “say precisely what they want to say”. The tirade about women and squash, for example could be far more abusive- we don’t see him hit his wife, and this is his domestic violence. Reviewer; Michael Gray, Chelmsford Weekly News Harold Pinter. Two words to strike terror into any Director and cast. But Nick Gulvin’s passion for the play pushed all this aside to present a performance of some class. The set was simple but simply great. It meant that the many scene changes were very slick and a credit to Jenny, Ruth and Emma. The changes of the pictures on the wall, the subtle changes of the furniture positions and the introductions and removals of the bed portrayed the time and location changes perfectly. The opening scene had me wondering who this new young looking actor with Sara Nower was. Then I realised it was, in fact, a clean-shaven Mike Nower. Sara and Mike played the adulterous couple Emma and Jerry, whilst Dean Hempstead was Emma’s cuckolded husband, who was also Jerry’s best friend. Starting after the affair had ended, the play went on to go back through its progress. Mike and Sara’s appreciation of the value of the “pause” was essential to this play and their timing in this area was evident right from the start. This appreciation was also transferred to Dean who more than held his own throughout the play. There were only two scenes that for me lacked that little extra. The scene in Venice when Emma confesses to her affair would have benefited from more menace in Robert’s probing of Emma. Also when Jerry, Emma and Robert were in the flat together there seemed to be a lack of tension between Emma and Jerry. But that’s just me being picky. I also feel that I must give a special mention to Robin Winder, the Waiter. It would have been so easy to over-play or even caricature the part but Robin’s controlled performance added perfectly to the scene. I was there on Tuesday and Saturday when the audience size was disappointing, but other evenings were better attended which was no more than this play deserved. Nick’s directorial début was certainly courageous and fortune favoured the brave. Vince Web