This is a ‘backward’ comedy, in nine scenes, based on the eternal triangle theme. Effectively, the play starts in present time, in this case 1977 where an adulterous affair comes to an end. The people involved are the publisher Robert, his wife Emma and lastly his best friend Jerry, a literary agent who was also his best man at their wedding in 1968. In flashback sequences, Emma and Jerry’s seven years long affair is unravelled and described as being rather trite as, among other things, Emma already told Robert about it in 1968 without informing Jerry of her deed. BETRAYAL is Pinters least mysterious work. In both plot and wit it is somewhat similar to Coward and throughout the years it has attracted a large audience, perhaps because many, at least to begin with, thought it was somehow autobiographical.
