Betrayal - member and critics reviews.

[Germangirl]

Another review:
http://m.theepochtimes.com/n3/348845-th ... -betrayal/

Ooooofff! And there I was thinking the reviews were going better. This one is horrid. Is there anything she likes about it, I wonder, apart from the costumes?! It just shows you can't please everyone.... Makes me wonder if she went along determined to dislike it, because it was DC and maybe she was expecting Bond?

Cocky, the reviews were mostly great to good with some real negative ones, which show even more IMO, how much Mikes portrayal of this play is a matter of taste.

[cassandra]

I did consider not posting the less enthusiastic reviews, but it doesn't matter because the indifferent ones are far outweighed by good reviews and the play is a success.

[CockHargreaves]

No, it's only right to get a balanced picture. Thanks, Cassandra

[Dunda]

It's very good to post the bad reviews too.

Otherwise people could get the impression we are whitewashing things and we wouldn't want that, would we?

[Sylvia's girl]

Harold Pinter’s ‘Betrayal’ on Broadway
Tragedy or travesty?

All the perfumes of Arabia can’t sweeten this author’s hand, to paraphrase Lady Macbeth. Despite the assemblage of an A+ artistic team, the play is chilling in its bleak view of human motivation. Sure, Daniel Craig (a.k.a. 007) is a splendid actor, as exciting on the stage as he is on screen. With his leonine mane and “lean and hungry look,” his Robert is an ideal predator who systematically punishes his unfaithful wife and friend. The beautiful Rachel Weisz (Craig’s real-life wife) plumbs the opacity and complexity of Emma, as she alternately uses and is used by the men. Rafe Spall, as Jerry, is an ideal comedic foil for the unhappy couple.

http://www.broadstreetreview.com/theate ... n-broadway

[Sylvia's girl]

Review: Nichols' BETRAYAL Doesn't Give One Pause

http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Re ... e-20131107

[Sylvia's girl]

Weisz is Wise and Beautiful on Broadway

Craig is still the specimen that ladies love and his acting is on point. He is more than credible as a drunk, and he meshes well with Spall as a buddy. The actors’ good looks will certainly sell tickets. But the play isn’t just about star power. It’s about the scary question of how something gets to be worth something, or in the case of a marriage, worth nothing.

http://nyblueprint.com/articles/view.aspx?id=1427

[Germangirl]

A rather dismissive review:

http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Re ... e-20131107

Just to show, that we have had this one twice - so we don't think, the negatives come flying along all of a sudden

It never ceases to amaze me, how this is viewed so differently. What many love, others (fewer thankfully) - dislike. But very few speak about Rafe anymore.

[Sylvia's girl]

Rather nice...

'Betrayal'
A Review by Elyse Trevers

The last time Daniel Craig was on Broadway, he starred opposite Hugh Jackman in A Steady Rain. Although Jackman's character was more emotional, Craig's performance was more impressive. Now he’s back and even better in the revival of Harold Pinter’s play, Betrayal at The Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Playing opposite him as his wife Emma, is his real-life wife Rachel Weisz. Craig plays the cuckolded husband Robert whose wife is having an affair with his best friend, Jerry (Rafe Spall.) The story is told over nine years in reverse order, starting in 1977. When the play begins, Jerry and Emma have already broken up and are meeting in a pub. Emma announces that her marriage is over because Robert has confessed to having affairs, so she’s told him about her own affair with Jerry.

Then the story moves forward to the next meeting between an anxious Jerry and Robert when Jerry learns that Emma had actually confessed to Robert about the affair years before. Flashback two years earlier, and the story continues to unfold. It’s an interesting theatrical approach and sometimes characters mention something that only later makes sense to the audience.

Craig is the obvious reason that this high-priced ticket has sold out most of its limited run. He is strong and forceful, slightly menacing and violent. His character seems quite capable of hitting his wife a few times, as he indicates he has. Even the one love scene is a bit violent; Weisz has tears in her eyes as her husband clutches her fiercely. (Did I mention that Craig looks really good too?)

Making her Broadway debut, the beautiful Weisz is intelligent and spirited. Emma lies to her lover as well as her husband. Why doesn't she tell Jerry that her husband knows about their affair? Instead she suggests that he call him for lunch, as if she wants them to have a confrontation and fight over her. Weisz is a bit aggressive and in her relationship with Jerry seems to be the instigator. She’s the one who ends it when Jerry seems a bit befuddled.

Jerry isn't as strong as the other two. However, this isn’t actor Spall’s fault. The character seems a bit confused and manipulated by the pair. Spall is a bit scruffy and slight, especially in contrast to Craig.

Betrayal is about lies and deceptions, manipulation and, of course, infidelity. Annoyed, Jerry wonders if his wife is seeing someone. The audience wonders if Robert has really been having affairs since Jerry never saw Robert making secret phone calls. Emma’s hurt and anger at her husband is ironic since her own affair lasted years.

As directed by Mike Nichols, Betrayal is not a remarkable interpretation of the Pinter play. However, I doubt that the producers really care. They went with big name celebrities and that has proven quite successful for the box office. The actors are fine, yet ironically, sometimes star power overshadows the play.

The play ends and there are questions that will stay unanswered. But most people didn’t care – they were too busy queuing up at the stage door to get Craig’s autograph.

http://liherald.com/stories/Betrayal,51016

[cassandra]

Thanks SG, I enjoyed reading this review.

[Germangirl]

You could tell, its from a woman Mentioning that he looks good etc - not that I mind. Thinking so myself. Nice indeed. More and more, Daniel seems front and center. Or maybe I am just biased in the way I read stuff.

[Sylvia's girl]

http://mollyismusing.blogspot.co.uk/201 ... weeks.html

[Sylvia's girl]

Secrets of Pleasurable Theatergoing
Careful whom you believe — not all Betrayals are letdowns.


.......Mentioning Craig reminds me that, with stars as with other performers, there are no guarantees, positive or negative, of quality. As Eric Bentley put it in the 1950s, "In the New York theater, there is no ratio between talent and fame — not even an inverse ratio." Craig, aside from being James Bond and all that, is an actual actor, and a good one. Put him and two other such actors together with an actual play, like Pinter's Betrayal, and an actual director, like Mike Nichols, and you get results that — the snipey negative reviews notwithstanding — are the kind a genuine playgoer values. The production is different from previous mountings of Betrayal. It has less of the aloof, cold-fish tone that people generally believe is optimal for Pinter; it hunts for and articulates subtexts that are not spelled out in the script's stage directions.
This has occasioned some raising of eyebrows among Broadway chatterers: The aficionados of anything-for-a-buck showbiz have suddenly become the arch-defenders of Pinter's sacred text. Admiring Pinter greatly but with reservations, and not counting Betrayal among my favorite plays, I have to admit that I enjoyed this production much more than my three previous encounters with the work. I saw and admired the sly intelligence of what Nichols was doing, and thought that, far from damaging the play, it expanded and underscored its sense, reinforcing the key point — often overlooked, though very clear in the text — that marital vows and friendship are not the only elements being betrayed here. The characters (the men particularly) have betrayed their youthful ideals; they have become exactly what they wanted not to be.

http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-ci ... 66642.html

[Germangirl]

Interesting view.

[Sylvia's girl]

http://theaccidentalthespian.blogspot.c ... eatre.html