Cheated (pinter)
Betrayed , in the English original Betrayal , is a play by the British Nobel Prize for Literature and author Harold Pinter . It premiered on November 15, 1978 at the National Theater in London, directed by Peter Hall . The play celebrated its German-language premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna on December 17, 1978 with the director Peter Wood .
action
The action takes place in Venice and London. Emma, who is married to Robert, her ex-lover Jerry and a waiter appear as protagonists. At the beginning of the play the woman is 38 years old and the two men are 40 years old. The play changes its scenes, sometimes in preview and sometimes in retrospect, between the years 1968 to 1977.
1977
Scene 1 - a pub in London in spring
- Emma and Jerry meet for the first time in two years. They had an affair for seven years, which they lived out in - as Jerry always emphasized - a secret apartment about which nobody knew anything. At this point in time Emma has a relationship with the author Casey, who in turn is being looked after by Jerry as an agent. Casey's publisher is Robert, Emma's husband. That evening Emma tells her former lover that she found out the night before that her husband had been cheating on her with another woman for years. But she has now confessed to her affair with Jerry from back then.
Scene 2 - Jerry's house later that day
- Jerry meets up with Robert to discuss his past affair with his wife. Robert admits that he learned everything four years ago. Since then, he has continued their friendship, apart from playing squash together earlier .
1975
Scene 3: The apartment in the winter of 1975
- Jerry and Emma meet less and less. Emma's hopes that the apartment they use for the affair could become something of a different kind of home remain unfulfilled. She agrees to give up and end the affair.
1974
Scene 4: In the living room of the married couple Robert and Emma
- Jerry visits the two of them at home. He reveals that the author Casey left his wife and lives nearby. Jerry and Robert decide to play squash together, but Jerry says he'll be in New York with Casey first.
1973
Scene 5: A hotel room in Venice in the summer of 1973
- Robert and Emma are on vacation in Venice. The next day they want to visit the island of Torcello . Emma is currently reading a book on the subject of treason by an author named Spinks, whose agent is Jerry. Robert mentions that he refused to publish it because there wasn't much left to say on the subject. He notices that Emma received a private letter from Jerry. Emma admits they are having an affair.
Scene 6: The apartment in the summer of 1973
- Emma is back from Venice. She bought a tablecloth for the apartment. Jerry explains that despite their affair, he continues to have lunch with Robert.
Scene 7: A restaurant in London in the summer of 1973
- Robert gets drunk at lunch with Jerry. He says he hates modern novels and that he went to Torcello alone to read Yeats .
1971
Scene 8: The apartment in the summer of 1971
- Emma wants to know if Jerry's wife is suspicious of the affair. She also announces that while Jerry was in America, she became pregnant with one of Robert's children.
1968
Scene 9: Emma and Robert's bedroom, winter 1968
- The real start of the affair: During a party, Jerry confesses his love to Emma in her bedroom, even if her husband Robert is his oldest friend and best man.
Adaptation
Pinter wrote the script for the film of the same name, directed by David Jones, which was released in 1983 with Jeremy Irons , Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge in the lead roles. The title of the German dubbed version was slightly different from the play " Betrug ".
reception
The piece is formally structured like a comedy with a typical triangular story as the subject. The non-chronological sequence of the scenes is atypical of the genre, which in turn sets Betrogen apart from the tabloid theater . As a further stylistic device, Pinter allows places and seasons of the action to be related to the moods and feelings of the people in his text. Due to the temporal leaps in the narrative process, the actors become less and less able to be classified in a triangular story. The simple dialogues throw an ambiguous look at relationships in the European middle class of the early 1970s. With cleverly placed pauses in the dialogues, the author tried to dismantle the affluent citizen.
Autobiographical background
Pinter brought his own experiences and experiences into the piece. He ended his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant in 1956 shortly before the play was published. The couple had drifted apart over the years due to an affair between Pinters and the author Antonia Fraser . How much of Pinter's biography found its way into the piece cannot, however, definitely be said.
swell
- "Triangle in the Square", Die Zeit, 28/1979
- Obituary for Pinter, website of Geest Verlag, accessed on May 26, 2019
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harold Pinter - Cheated. In: Rowohlt Theaterverlag. Retrieved May 15, 2019 .
- ^ Nobel Prize for Harold Pinter On language, chat. In: Der Spiegel. October 13, 2005, accessed May 26, 2019 .
- ↑ Master dramaturge with a political conscience. In: Der Tagesspiegel. December 25, 2018, accessed May 26, 2019 .