Harold Pinter | The Sleepless Critic

REVIEW: Silence speaks volumes in Gloucester Stage Company’s clever and multi-faceted British play ‘Betrayal’

Posted on July 20 by The Sleepless Critic

“I think of you sometimes.”

The passing thought and echoes of an ex can come and go. In the aftermath of an affair, some things may also become crystal clear.

With layered direction by Shana Gozansky, Gloucester Stage Company continues Harold Pinter’s British drama, Betrayal live and in person at Gloucester Stage Company in Gloucester, Massachusetts through Saturday, August 1. This semi-autobiographical and non-linear production runs approximately 85 minutes with no intermission. Click here for more information and for tickets.

Gloucester Stage Company’s production of “Betrayal”, written by Harold Pinter and directed by Shana Gozansky, starring Liza Giangrande, Michael Underhill, Tanner Efinger, and Jeremy Beazlie, runs at the theater from July 11 though August 1, 2026.

© 2026 Shawn G. Henry • 978-590-4869

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Written in 1978, Harold Pinter’s Betrayal is a deeply personal play inspired by Pinter’s illicit real life affair with a BBC journalist. It delves into the lies, danger, suspicions, surprises, and secrets you hide from others as well as the ones you tell yourself when love takes an unexpected turn. I couldn’t help but notice the British holiday film, Love Actually shares a passing resemblance to Betrayal in one of its many popular plot lines and famous playwright Jason Robert Brown was inspired to pattern Pinter’s reverse chronological narrative style in Betrayal into his famous musical, The Last Five Years. Instead of building a story from the beginning, Pinter innovatively begs the question, “How did we all get here?”

Jeffrey Petersen’s intriguing avant guarde set serves as various locations featuring white chairs, a pastel background, a skewed mirror and red carpeting. While Amanda E. Fallon’s flashing shadows, silhouettes and psychedelic lighting in conjunction with Julian Crocamo’s jagged piano-infused sound design reverberates to rewind the clock, it is curious that the audience can bear witness to pieces of the action backstage. Perhaps an act of transparency in this complicated affair.

Time leaping from 1977 to 1968, Betrayal redefines and explores the nature of betrayal in all its forms. This witty cast share captivating chemistry and sharp comic timing. Liza Giangrande depicts romantic, complicated and disillusioned Emma who is married to Tanner Efinger as scholarly book publisher Robert, but sees an opportunity for freedom in Michael Underhill as dashing, married, and Robert’s oldest friend and fellow book publisher Jerry. Rounding out the cast is Jeremy Beazile who offers his own humor as the Waiter. Aside from an immense love of literature, Giangrande is compelling as Emma sharing playful and exciting chemistry with Underhill as Jerry and an enigmatic and restrained rapport with Robert.

Nia Safaar Banks creates posh ensembles not only faithful to the late 70s in psychedelic patterns, floral, and velvet coats, but creations that reflect the distinct personalities and vast differences in one another which is never better defined than in Michael Underhill as relaxed Jerry and Tanner Efinger as intellectual Robert. In sneakers and denim, Jerry is adventurous, dark and dashing while Robert is anxious, serious and seemingly safe in a distinguished sweater vest.

Pinter’s eccentric style of storytelling is always fascinating even at its most absurd which also exposes pointlessness, but here Pinter relies more on subtlety than absurdity. It is a production with a deeply meticulously restrained emotional core. Distressed sighs, ironies, layered conversations, loaded pauses, and the dignified and carefully composed comments are the real allure of this production embedded within Betrayal’s scandal. Betrayal is eccentrically understated with a wealth of humor, repression, symbolism, contradictions and revelations in an innovatively told tale. It takes a novel approach to each scene, especially the lack of awkwardness where it should be awkward and the profound meaning behind what is left unsaid.

Gloucester Stage Company continues Harold Pinter’s British drama, Betrayal live and in person at Gloucester Stage Company in Gloucester, Massachusetts through Sunday, Saturday, August 1. Click here for more information and for tickets.

REVIEW: Packing and unpacking Praxis Stage’s impactful ‘The Birthday Party’

Posted on May 4, 2024 by The Sleepless Critic

‘What came first, the chicken or the egg?!!’

This line of interrogation provides an element of a number of surprises delivered by a pair of possible gangsters in Noble prize-winner Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party. Harold Pinter’s thought-provoking work and style inspired many famous playwrights as well as greats in film and television. For example, it is rumored that Quentin Tarantino, inspired by Harold Pinter, patterned gangsters Samuel L. Jackson’s Jules Winnfield and John Travolta’s Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction and their absurdist style of dialogue to Goldberg and McCann in The Birthday Party. The art of the chicken and the egg conversation to a dialogue about a Royal with Cheese gets curiouser and curiouser.

Keenly directed by James Wilkinson, Praxis Stage presented Harold Pinter’s comedy of menace The Birthday Party live and in person at Chelsea Theatre Works in Chelsea, Massachusetts through Sunday, April 28. Click here for more information.

Zair Silva, Daniel Boudreau, Kevin Paquette, Darya Denisova, Paul Valley, and Sharon Mason in Praxis Stage’s ‘The Birthday Party’ Photos by Alex Aroyan

Taking place exclusively in a seaside boarding house, The Birthday Party focuses on unassuming Petey, depicted with an air of laidback serenity by Paul Valley, his anxious and chatty wife Meg, portrayed with tightly wound cheerfulness by Sharon Mason as well as boarder and unemployed pianist Stanley in an impressively mercurial performance by Zair Silva. With Petey and Stanley’s mixed participation, Meg navigates her daily routines at the boarding house with a plastered smile and a meticulous, yet monotonous zeal. However, a monkey wrench is thrown into the equation when two mysterious guests named Goldberg and McCann suddenly rent a room and everyone anticipates their imminent arrival while Stanley instantly feels a sense of doom.

Make no mistake, The Birthday Party is indeed about a birthday party which is a joyous occasion celebrating a milestone, but what if it is also merely an annual ritual done on any given day in which one is expected to celebrate?

The Birthday Party may render you speechless, a bit disoriented and frustrated, yet you will find yourself invested in this peculiar production’s motivations and outcomes. This dark comedy examines human nature from a Noble prize-winning playwright’s absurdist perspective leaving much to interpretation. Pinter shakes up each character’s expectations and was known to loath explaining his craft and or his characters’ real motivations.

This gripping cast is more than up to the challenges this complicated show offers with quick witted timing as moods and situations change on a dime often with breakneck speed. Mason’s Meg instinctive caretaking habits build a warm rapport with Petey while she shares a bizarre maternal affinity toward Stanley with the exception of a scene using the unnerving word, ‘succulent.’ Beautiful Darya Denisova as adventurous and flirtatious Lulu has ideas of her own.

Kevin Paquette in Praxis Stage’s ‘The Birthday Party’ Photo by Nile Scott Studios

Daniel Boudreau as Goldberg and Kevin Paquette as McCann make an intriguing, focused and stealthy pair. An avid and smooth storyteller, Boudreau is a natural as Goldberg, swaggering with unmitigated charm and authority while brawny McCann is a sly sidekick. Whether they are deliberate and threatening or schmoosing with feigned gallantry, each of Goldberg and McCann’s movements keeps the audience guessing. Some of the most intense and challenging sequences occur between Silva, Boudreau and Paquette demonstrating a rollercoaster of emotions that will leave you at the edge of your seat with questions left unanswered.

The Birthday Party is shrewd, shocking, and suspenseful, even over what seems like the ridiculous. More often than not, Pinter’s work is not what it seems and reality is often blurred. However, order, chaos, and delusion all play massive roles in this cast of ambiguous characters. Where there is warmth, there is order. Where there is panic, there is chaos and where there is delusion, compassion creeps in.

Keenly directed by James Wilkinson, Praxis Stage presented The Birthday Party, a comedy of menace, live and in person at Chelsea Theatre Works in Chelsea, Massachusetts through Sunday, April 28. Click here for more information.