Betrayal, the sold-out London hit starring Tom Hiddleston, Zawe Ashton, and Charlie Cox comes to Broadway for a strictly limited engagement.
Direct from a standing-room-only hit run in London, Betrayal is the story of an illicit affair that unfolds in reverse—from the end of a marriage to the first forbidden spark. Starring Golden Globe and Olivier Award winner Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers), Zawe Ashton (Velvet Buzzsaw) and Charlie Cox (Daredevil) in their Broadway debuts, this stunning production features the daring vision of one of the UK's most acclaimed directors.
Reverse chronology has become a familiar narrative device in film, but when Harold Pinter employed it in 1978 in his blisteringly personal drama about an extramarital affair, Betrayal, it was still uncommon enough to become highly influential. It makes the drama start from a place of awkwardness steeped in grief, two years after the illicit liaison has finished, and end at the beginning, with a rapturous sense of secret possibility, marbled by the deep vein of melancholy present from the first scene. That emotional complexity smolders like hot coals in Jamie Lloyd's expertly calibrated production, transferring to Broadway direct from its hit London engagement.
Betrayal is best when played as a teasing, slightly sinister comedy, as it was in a 2000 Broadway production in which then little-known John Slattery played Robert and made the most of it, stealing the show from his co-stars Juliette Binoche and Liev Schreiber. Hiddleston is a fine actor and gets some laughs out of the part as Robert toys with the other two, but he spends much of the play seeming forlorn where Slattery was impish, which is why this staging drags a bit even at an abbreviated 90 minutes. Cox, meanwhile, is more than adequate as the duplicitous friend, but Emma Ashton merely comes across as sweet and slightly passive. She hardly seems worth anyone's trouble, and I'm not sure the play does either.
1980 | Broadway |
Broadway |
2000 | Broadway |
Roundabout Revival Broadway |
2013 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
2019 | West End |
London Revival at Harold Pinter Theatre West End |
2019 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2020 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tom Hiddleston |
2020 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Betrayal |
2020 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Tom Hiddleston |
2020 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Play | Jamie Lloyd |
2020 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Betrayal |
2020 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Play | Jamie Lloyd |
2020 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Tom Hiddleston |
2020 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Betrayal |
2020 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | Soutra Gilmour |
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