Betrayal

by Harold Pinter

seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre on 17 May 2019

Jamie Lloyd directs Tom Hiddleston as Robert, Zawe Ashton as Emma (his wife) and Charlie Cox as Jerry (his best friend) in a superb revival of Pinter's play about a the inricacies ad emotional costs of betrayal.

The design by Soutra Gilmour is mesmerisingly austere - a pastel shaded backdrop which occasionally slides forward; a grey floor containing a two-part revolve; a couple of chairs; at one stage a flimsy fold-out table; a few bottles of drinks (water or wine). This forces all the attention on the actors and on the psychological processes of the characters, and allows for maximum fluidity in a play that famously presents its story in reverse, starting with a meeting between Emma and Jerry two years after their seven-year affair has ended, and working gradually backwards until the first occasion on which Jerry confessed his love for Emma.

Incognito

by Nick Payne

seen at the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, on 28 May 2016

Doug Hughes directs Geneva Carr, Charlie Cox, Heather Lind and Morgan Spector in a production designed by Scott Pask and lit by Ben Stanton.

The actors take multiple roles in a play in which several story lines are developed contrapuntally, with only sudden changes of lighting indicating a scene change on a black stage with four black chairs. We follow the story of the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein and 'stole' his brain for further research (which is never published); the story of an epileptic whose most severe fit left him with a memory window of only a few minutes; the story of a psychologist embarking on a lesbian affair but hesitant to admit that she has been married and has a grown up son; and some of her interviews with clients.