When the baker’s wife is unfaithful with a prince in Sondheim’s Into the Woods, she sings some of his cleverest lyrics: “There are vows, there are ties, there are standards, there are needs, there are shouldn’ts and shoulds. Why not both instead? There’s the answer if you’re clever. Have a child for warmth and a baker for bread and a prince for whatever.”
In Harold Pinter’s Betrayal Robert (Andrew Buckland) has affairs, but is married with two children. So is his best friend Jerry (Jeremy Crutchley). Yet Jerry is also having an affair with Robert’s wife – Emma (Susan Danford). Like the baker’s wife we wonder, “Must it always be either less or more, either plain or grand, is it always ‘or’, is it never ‘and’?” Yet this isn’t a moment in the woods, they’ve been at it for seven years, even sharing a flat. Nor is it a secret. At a certain point in time, everyone knows, but not everyone knows who knows.
Echoing conventional morality, the baker’s wife concludes, “Just remember when you’ve had and ‘and’, when you’re back to ‘or’, makes the ‘or’ mean more than it did before”. Pinter is not convinced. Instead, he acknowledges how people manage the tensions around emotional security and romantic yearnings. There is no terrifying climax, no make or break confrontation. Not that there isn’t pain, jealousy, loss and anger, but when everyone is guilty of some betrayal, it almost ceases to be an accusation.
Director Lara Foot Newton has chosen shrewdly for a public largely unfamiliar with Pinter’s extensive oeuvre. Written with the clarity of a surgical light, it is today as relevant as it was in 1978.
Newton has hand-picked what is a dream cast. Buckland is subtlety personified, perfect for a sly comedy in which we laugh silently, inwardly. He could be purged of some British intonations that have become over-familiarly associated with Monty Python, but that might be part of his performance’s appeal. Audiences may need clues to the comedy. As passionate lovers, Crutchley and Danford, are an ideal match. We’re fortunate to have them both permanently back in South Africa. Together with Mannie Manim’s sensitive lighting, Patrick Curtis’s muted modern grey set is the perfect canvas for these sterling performances. Newton has allowed the work to breathe and seen to it that none of Pinter’s delicacy goes astray.
