Soulstice Theatre braves Pinter’s “Betrayal”

Betrayal, by British playwright Harold Pinter, has a familiar premise – a love affair between a married woman and her husband’s closest friend – but takes it in an unfamiliar direction. Backwards.

“It’s the story of an affair in reverse,” said Matt Michaelis, director of the Soulstice Theatre production opening Friday, Sept. 13. He says the play begins several years after the end of Emma’s (Amy Hansmann) affair with Jerry (Andrew Riebau), her husband Robert’s (Joe Krapf) closest childhood friend, and continually steps further back in time until the beginning of the affair nine years prior.

The result is a unique puzzle of a play, where dialogue in earlier (but chronologically, later) scenes is left intentionally opaque, or unveils new meanings as we learn more about the trio’s history together. Adding in Pinter’s reputation as a textually economical playwright whose dialogue is indirect and shadowed enough when it’s chronologically organized, the play sounds tricky for an audience, but Michaelis has faith in Soulstice’s future patrons.

“Pinter has a simplicity of dialogue, and there’s a weight to every word,” he admits. “But he puts everything in the scripts. So it’s all about how you as performers flesh it out.”

With that in mind, he’s held back on commissioning extensive sets, instead opting for a minimalist arrangement that puts the emphasis on the cast’s formidable chemistry (partially sparked by their shared turn in last year’s The Memory of Water, also at Soulstice), and the conversations and relationships Pinter has written in.

Part of the reason Michaelis says he likes Betrayal so much as a piece is in Pinter’s decision not to make any of his characters perfect individuals, and to have them deceive themselves as much as they deceive each other. “This play is about the lies you’re willing to tell both yourself and others to protect yourself. … These are raw, not-redeeming characters, who Pinter presents as-they-are.”

But we’re more used to less-moral protagonists these days, so Michaelis thinks audience members will like what Betrayal has to offer. “Take a risk,” he said. “and explore these characters.”

Betrayal will run at Soulstice Theatre, 3770 S. Pennsylvania Ave. in St. Francis, from Sept. 13 to 28, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Tickets are $20, $18 for students and seniors and can be purchased online or at (414) 481-2800.