Betrayal - member and critics reviews.

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cassandra
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Post by cassandra »

http://ngpopgun.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/betrayal/

Betrayal
October 21

It is perhaps fair to say before I begin that my experience of the theater has been mixed.

I dutifully go along to see the most critically feted plays of the year, only to walk out wondering what exactly it is that I was missing.

Filmmaker Werner Herzog is a known theater hater who cites ‘all that ridiculous shouting’ as a reason to dislike it.

Well on that level he might have cut the new star-studded Broadway production of ‘Betrayal’ a bit of slack as shouting is kept to a minimum, this being a Harold Pinter play after all, a man more known for his pauses that his vocal wattage.

Yet I doubt this play would have fostered in him a hither to unknown love of the stage.

Set in London in the sixties and seventies, ‘Betrayal’ is the story of an affair between two married people told in reverse. We start with the aftermath of the relationship and work our way back to the moments before the very first kiss and declaration of love.

This technique threatens to introduce something new into a pretty shop worn subject but somehow the cool style of Pinter sabotages the whole endeavor. It’s like having a chartered accountant write about a love affair. It may give you an odd take but it leaves you feeling ever so slightly bored.

In fact the person in the seat next to me feel asleep. I couldn’t blame the acting for this soporific effect; Daniel Craig, Rafe Spall and Rachel Weisz were all excellent it’s just that well….. how many more plays, books or films about affairs are there already? Squillions. And how many really introduce something new to our understanding of these things? Very, very few.

In a way ‘Betrayal’ is a period piece from a time when talking about the realities of modern relationships in a more honest, critical way was a relatively new thing.

Maybe in the late seventies it had the power to shock or intrigue but in todays less idealistic and more cynical age ‘Betrayal’ is yet another tale of infidelity in a world chock full of it.
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Post by cassandra »

Review in the Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... um=twitter

First night theatre review: Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig in Betrayal, Ethel Barrymore Theatre New York
No wonder New York wants in on Weisz and Craig’s domestic drama

On the surface, yet another revival of Harold Pinter’s 1978 play Betrayal shouldn’t be all that notable.

There have been plenty of recent high-profile revivals of Pinter’s study of self-deception and adultery that serves as perhaps his most accessible and humane play. But this Broadway production starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Rafe Spall and directed by Oscar-winning veteran Mike Nichols, that opened on Sunday night just off Manhattan’s Times Square, is a commercial phenomenon. Tickets are selling on New York’s black market for four-figure sums to see real-life couple Craig and Weisz play an unhappily married couple in a limited run.

The production itself reinforces the idea that this is no ordinary Betrayal. Of course Nichols’s version retains the play’s reverse chronological structure chronicling the love affair between Jerry (Spall) and Emma (Weisz) who is married to his best friend Robert (Craig). It begins in 1977 with Emma and Jerry meeting two years after their seven-year affair finished and ends when their liaison began at a drunken party in 1968.

But gone are the trademark Pinter pauses and the tenderness that have defined recent versions, most notably Ian Rickson’s West End production in 2011. Nichols takes liberties with stage directions, adding a fully-clothed sex scene, and renders the play’s climatic party scene unrecognisable from how it usually plays out.

Although this production never catches its breath to reveal the slow-burning ashes of the past that the play usually makes vivid, knockout performances from both Craig and Weisz render it a Betrayal on fire. Nichols’s crude and chaotic depiction of the love triangle is powerfully compelling theatre – enhanced, one feels, by the real-life frisson supplied by the onstage sparring of Weisz and Craig.

Craig is brilliant as Jerry, capturing the character’s menace and vulnerability, hurt more by the betrayal of his best friend than this wife. His assured performance reminds us he’s a stage natural and why so many 007 fans initially thought him insufficiently heroic to be a good Bond when the casting was first announced. Weisz is excellent as Emma, evoking the mastery she has over both her husband and his best friend, while conveying the emotional devastation she undergoes through piercing facial gestures.

There will be Pinter aficionados who mourn the absence of the layers beneath the surface. This version bears as much resemblance to many previous productions as a club kid does to a Chelsea pensioner. But the juxtaposition of Pinter’s starkly precise dialogue with such a frenzied production reinforces the emotional violence and dishonesty suffered by all three protagonists. It would be a shame if this fine production didn’t come home to London where the play first began.


N.B. There's an error: Craig is brilliant as Jerry, capturing the character’s menace and vulnerability, hurt more by the betrayal of his best friend than this wife.

I hope this will be corrected on the website.
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Post by Germangirl »

Wow - wonderful. :clapclap:
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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Post by Sylvia's girl »

Thanks Cass...

A mediocre one here. It's all amatter of taste. :wink:

http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/t ... um=twitter
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Post by Germangirl »

Cant even tell for sure, if its good or not, what he says about Daniel.
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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Post by Sylvia's girl »

Pinter's 'Betrayal' ages well
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertain ... 929.column

Not so good
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/index.html

broadwayworld ‏@broadwayworld 2m
Review Roundup: BETRAYAL Opens on Broadway - Updating Live!...
http://bit.ly/1a98ZjO


Great from The Hollywood Reporter
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-651132

Review: Revival of Pinter's 'Betrayal' is stunning
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/10/2 ... rylink=cpy


'Betrayal' review -- Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz shine
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/th ... -1.6321091

LA Times - Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Rafe Spall wrangle for the emotional upper hand in Harold Pinter's 'Betrayal,' directed by Mike Nichols. The guys get the focus; Weisz's character is odd man out.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ar ... z2iyaPc2rC

Craig, Weisz, Rafe Spall Sizzle in Five-Star ‘Betrayal’: Review
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-1 ... yal-review
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Post by Germangirl »

Thanks Sylvia for your tireless work.

So - we have 11 great to good ones and 7 lesser ones, of which 2 are still favourable to the actors. All we could hope for. OK, Rafe gets some extra point in some, but so does Daniel and it it doesn't hurt either, when he is still called "magnificant" etc.

Variety - just to post, that Daniel gets some of hands up over Rafe, too.
Anyone who shelled out the big bucks to see James Bond in the flesh will get more than they bargained for in Mike Nichols’ impeccable revival of “Betrayal.” They’ll be getting a powerful performance from Daniel Craig, a movie star who still has his stage legs. Rachel Weisz, Craig’s wife in the real world, and Rafe Spall, both superb, claim much of the stage time as the adulterous lovers in this enigmatic 1978 play that Harold Pinter based on one of his own extramarital affairs. But it’s the smoldering Craig, as the cuckolded husband, whose brooding presence is overpowering.

No Rafe

Wrap

It’s a marvel of acting to watch Daniel Craig slowly bring the subtext of raging anger to the fore in scene after scene of this Harold Pinter revival

No Rafe

Daily Telegraph
YOU have to applaud Daniel Craig, a film icon (thank you, James Bond) who began in the theatre and returns there still. Across the Atlantic, he’s been the best thing about his two New York stage ventures to date, and when Craig is allowed to feast on the emotionally famished world of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, audiences at this Broadway season’s most-anticipated offering are unlikely to feel let down.
Craig, who occupies the most explosive point on the play’s libidinous triangle, easily comes off the best, playing Robert, the publisher...


Showbiz
http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/10/27/da ... e-audience
Mike Nichols directed this revival of “Betrayal.” The New York Times didn’t like it but everyone else did. As Elaine May, Nichols’ long time friend and partner, said to me after the show: “Who else could get laughs out of Harold Pinter?” Indeed, Nichols found the much needed humor in “Betrayal” that now gives it humanity as well as fierceness.
Weisz is a proven entity, and she’s excellent as Emma. Spall is interesting choice. This production introduces him to Broadway audiences. But I think it’s Daniel Craig who’s the focus of much of the attention. Most people know him as James Bond. Four years ago he appeared in a two hander called “A Steady Rain” with Hugh Jackman.

Craig was a surprise then, and he is now. He’s extremely comfortable on stage and seems nothing like stoic Bond. When I asked him if playing Bond was a different acting muscle, he surprised me again. “No,” he said. “It’s the same. It’s all acting. I just try to be honest.” It works.


Good!
http://www.northjersey.com/arts_enterta ... l?page=all

Not really a review :lol.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/ar ... rayal.html
Betrayal, directed by Mike Nichols, has received positive reviews from critics and a recent performance was attended by Oprah Winfrey, Bette Midler, Glenn Close and Javier Bardem.

I like this one from Newsday (already posted link)
As Craig proved to Broadway when he played a quietly desperate cop in "A Steady Rain" in 2009, the actor is far more than Bond, James Bond. As Robert, a book publisher, he begins with a dapper, sardonic edge and lets us watch that famous granite profile crumble.
Weisz, impressively subtle Off-Broadway 12 years ago in Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things," is commanding and grand fun to watch in her Broadway debut as the gallery owner/mother with a life on the side, though this Emma feels more clingy than the one Pinter wrote. Spall is less an obvious seducer than a puppy with teeth as Jerry, the married book agent, who, in this version, at times seems almost as attracted to the husband as to the wife.


What I got from reading all the reviews is, that those, who didn't quite like it was, that they had problems with Nichols way of directing the play, which seems to be unusual compared to the other directions.
What is interesting is, that what the majority thought was great, some others didn't like. So - its eally here a mater of taste and what you expect. If you expect the same 0le, you will be disappointed. 2 or 3 didn't like Daniels performance too much, as opposed to those, who praised him and like I said, some didn't even mention Rafe. And yes, some praised him above the other two. Again - this shows how different people see it.

I already counted the NY Times and NY Post review under the lesser ones :wink:

I will try to find some more, before I take off for 2 days. Right now, Idon't find anything new. They are repeating ow the ones, that are there.

Overall, its a success and they can be happy with themselves. :clapclap:
Last edited by Germangirl on Mon Oct 28, 2013 8:32 am, edited 11 times in total.
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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Post by Dunda »

Sylvia's girl wrote:Great from The Hollywood Reporter
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-651132
:lol: :lol: I liked this one "Dressed in an impeccably tailored suit, with his silver mane raked back, " :lol:

Time to change the headline of the Blond Bond into the Silver Bond :lol:

But the Silver Bond is played by the Golden Boy! :lol:
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Post by cassandra »

The Daily Telegraph gives a 3/5 star review


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/thea ... eview.html

YOU have to applaud Daniel Craig, a film icon (thank you, James Bond) who began in the theatre and returns there still. Across the Atlantic, he’s been the best thing about his two New York stage ventures to date, and when Craig is allowed to feast on the emotionally famished world of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, audiences at this Broadway season’s most-anticipated offering are unlikely to feel let down.
Whether that public will get much of a feeling for the teasingly erotic and shivery byways of Pinter’s 1978 play is another matter. Then again, maybe in true New York tradition they will be sufficiently thrilled to have scored a ticket that they won’t care.
Ever since the director Mike Nichols’s revival of the play was first announced, Broadway has gone into the kind of lather usually reserved for stars such as Tom Hanks, Bette Midler and Denzel Washington. Not to mention Craig back in 2009, when his Broadway debut in A Steady Rain, opposite Hugh Jackman, elevated a tepid American two-hander to must-see status.
Betrayal, by contrast, remains a cornerstone of the English repertoire, a reverse-chronology drama that rarely goes unproduced for long in the UK and has had two previous Broadway productions, albeit without a Briton in the cast. Interest has been intensified by the leading lady, Rachel Weisz (Craig’s Oscar-winning wife), and a bearded Rafe Spall (Life of Pi, Constellations) completing the starry treble.
The curiosity value inherent in watching the Craigs play a couple whose marriage runs amok could account for “premium seats” selling in excess of $400 (£250) and weekly grosses well beyond $1 million (£618,000). Indeed, The New York Times took the unusual step during previews of lamenting the “astronomical ticket prices” that place the show out of the financial reach of mere mortals.
At the same time, the feeding frenzy begs the question whether a production of this calibre would benefit from trusting its material rather more. In 1984, Nichols directed the sizzling Broadway premiere of The Real Thing, the adultery-minded Tom Stoppard drama that dates from the same vintage as Betrayal. But the sizzle on this occasion owes more to an occasional set (a Venetian hotel room by way of Versailles) or the costume parade delivered up by an oddly self-conscious Weisz, whose closing-scene kaftan would be right at home in the hippie musical, Hair.
Craig, who occupies the most explosive point on the play’s libidinous triangle, easily comes off the best, playing Robert, the publisher whose wife, Emma (Weisz), is revealed to have had a seven-year affair with his great friend, Jerry (Spall), who was best man at the couple’s wedding — a rather cartoonish best man on this evidence, given that Spall plays the gathering ache of the text largely for laughs. (There’s also a hint that these Oxbridge contemporaries, plied with enough drink, might well become more than simply friends.) Across nine scenes and as many years, Pinter rewinds events to conclude with the telling physical act that launched the affair, a small yet impulsive gesture here replaced by the sight of Jerry and Emma all but devouring one another: overstatement where less would be more, and sexier, too.
Perhaps Nichols felt Broadway audiences wouldn’t warm unaided to Pinter’s coolly revealing strategy, which deploys passion in the service of a play given over thematically to lovelessness and loss. There’s a defining sequence in which Craig’s charismatically simmering Robert re-enters his living room and, for a brief instant, you don’t know whether he’s going to strike Emma or sweep her into his arms.
I won’t reveal what happens except to say that it’s a superbly ambiguous moment: dangerous, charged, alive. This Betrayal could use more of the same.
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Post by cassandra »

Ben Brantley's review in the New York Times is not good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/theat ... share&_r=0
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Post by cassandra »

The New York Post gives a 3/5 review

http://nypost.com/2013/10/27/cheaters-p ... -betrayal/

Cheaters prosper in ‘Betrayal’

With its flashy pedigree — stars Daniel “007” Craig and his real-life wife, Rachel Weisz, plus powerhouse director Mike Nichols — Broadway’s new revival of “Betrayal” was a hot ticket before rehearsals even started.
When $500 premium seats are selling based on reputation alone, you don’t need to be a masterpiece.
The good news is that while the production isn’t a lightning bolt of brilliance, it’s also sturdy and absorbing.
But then, the play’s construction forces you to pay attention.
In 1978’s “Betrayal,” Harold Pinter tracks an adulterous triangle over roughly a decade — and in roughly reverse chronological order. In the first scene, ex-lovers Emma (Weisz) and Jerry (Rafe Spall) meet in a pub in 1977, two years after their breakup. The show concludes with their initial kiss, at a party, in 1968.
In between, we check in on the duo and Emma’s husband, Robert (Craig), through the years. (Jerry’s married, too, but his wife is never seen and doesn’t seem to factor much into anybody’s thoughts.)
In the opening scene, Emma informs Jerry that she’s just told her husband — who’s also Jerry’s best friend — about their affair. Or so she says: In the next scene, Robert casually tells Jerry he’s known about them for years.
When the play starts going backwards in time, you scrutinize the characters for clues, slips, revealing smiles or frowns. Who knows what when? In a web of lies, information is more important than sentiment.
Pinter, inspired by a seven-year affair of his own, writes with manipulative precision. There’s a contained fury in the merciless way with which he approaches Emma, Robert and Jerry. At times, you feel as if he’s less interested in feelings than in the clever perspective-altering plot mechanics.
This impression is reinforced in this production, which looks great but is emotionally distant and a tad too tasteful. Ian MacNeil’s stylish sets glide smoothly in and out as we move through the years and places — a pub, a studio apartment for illicit sex, a hotel room in Venice. Departing from his usual dance-music exuberance, former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy contributes a restrained piano-and-string score.
It’s all cool and self-controlled, as is Weisz’s performance. The English actress — who memorably played another adulterous wife in the 2011 movie “The Deep Blue Sea” — has a stunning, warm beauty, but it’s paired with emotional opacity. She cries in half of her scenes, yet it’s hard to get a sense of what Emma actually wants.
Saddled with feathered, dirty-blond ’70s hair, Craig gives us a blunt Robert who seems to care less about losing his wife than his best friend.
“I’ve always liked Jerry,” Robert coldly tells Emma after discovering her cheating. “To be honest, I’ve always liked him rather more than I’ve liked you. Maybe I should have had an affair with him myself.”
As the man in the middle, Spall — the son of jowly character actor Timothy Spall, the rat of the “Harry Potter” films — makes the strongest impression as a man torn between desire and guilt.
At the end, which is the beginning, Jerry is carefree and daring. We already know a decade of lies and cheating awaits.
This is the kind of insight that makes “Betrayal” a play worth revisiting — its very structure encourages multiple viewings. Just not at $500 a pop.
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Post by Germangirl »

From the Broadway message board. We have these, just because..

Financial Times is positive: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/61b97c56 ... z2iyakSonU

AP is a rave: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wir ... g-20698907

Chicago Tribune is positive: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertain ... 114.column

Hollywood Reporter is positive: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-651132

Newsday is positive: http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/th ... -1.6321091

LA Times is positive: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ar ... z2iyhrSIef

Bloomberg is a rave: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-1 ... yal-review


(What show did these guys see...?)
AM NY is mixed with 2.5 stars: http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/t ... -1.6328629

NY Times is negative: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/theat ... ef=theater

NY Mag is positive (and a rather annoying read, truthfully): http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/theater- ... rayal.html

The Guardian is mixed, with three out of five stars: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/o ... r-new-york

USA Today is mixed with 2.5 out of four stars: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/thea ... l/3178159/

EW is positive: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,2036439 ... 44,00.html

TimeOut NY's review isn't up, but they give it 3 out of 5 stars: http://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/betrayal

Variety is a rave: http://variety.com/2013/legit/reviews/b ... 200769173/

The Wrap is positive: http://www.thewrap.com/betrayal-daniel- ... chel-weisz

NY Post is positive, with three out of four stars: http://nypost.com/2013/10/27/cheaters-p ... -betrayal/

NY Daily News is positive, with four out of five stars: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... -1.1496753
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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Post by Germangirl »

Interesting about David Cote, from the Guardian, who gave it 3/5

David Cote recently had a staged reading of a play he wrote. Our neighbor saw it and said it was absolutely dreadful and he walked out on it.
Mr Cote likes to rip others because he obviously is not up to writing a play himself. Seems like a case of sour grapes David.


..Or maybe he just wasn't crazy about the show.

He ain't crazy about a lot of shows. I think of him as Ben Brantleys (NY Times) secret brother.
The top notch acting in the Weisz/Craig/Spall 'Betrayal' is emotionally true, often v funny and its beautifully staged with filmic qualities..

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