Perseverance Theatre Presents BETRAYAL, Now thru 2/3

Perseverance Theatre Artistic Associates Shona Strauser and Bostin Christopher team up for the first time on Betrayal by Harold Pinter. Strauser plays Emma and Christopher directs in this first ever production of Pinter at Perseverance. The show plays from tonight, Jan. 11-Feb. 3, 2013 on the Perseverance Theatre Mainstage.

Tickets are available now through Hearthside Books, at the JACC, online at perseverancetheatre.org or by calling 907-463-TIXS (8497). There are two Pay-As-You-Can Performances on Sunday, January 13 and Wednesday, January 17 at 7:30 p.m. and one Pay-As-You-Can Preview on Wednesday, January 9 at 7:30 p.m.

Christopher directs this intricate, intimate unveiling of the ultimate break in trust. Strauser plays Emma who is married to Robert, but having an affair with Jerry, Robert's best friend. Over nine years, feelings are masked and words are used in a struggle for power as the price of passion is paid and layers of hidden truth are revealed. Also featuring Daniel Billet from Los Angeles and AaRon Wiseman from Anchorage. Harold Pinter is a Nobel Prize-winner for literature and is considered one of the premiere dramatists of the twentieth century.

Told in a reverse chronology, Betrayal opens in a pub in 1977 where Emma and Jerry meet a few years after their affair has ended. From there the story unfolds year-by-year with each scene revealing something more penetrating then if the story were told in order. Instead of discovering what's next, the questions become how, why and when? With his trademark economical dialogue and use of silence, Pinter's Betrayal is considered a modern classic and perhaps his most personal work.

Juneau favorite Shona Strauser, back on the Mainstage for the first time since 2010's Boom, will play the role of Emma, with Christopher's long-time friend and collaborator AaRon Wiseman from Anchorage making his Perseverance debut as Robert. Also making his Perseverance debut is Daniel Billet from Los Angeles. Akiko Nishijima Rotch will design the set. After a too-long absence, Jim Cucurull of Anchorage will return to PT to design lights. Lucy Peckham, who designed sound for The Blue Bear returns designing sound and Arnulfo Maldanado from New York, who frequently works with the Anchorage Opera, will design costumes.

Harold Pinter (October 10, 1930 - December 24, 2008) was a Nobel Prize-winning English playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted to film. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works. More information about Harold Pinter can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Pinter or http://www.haroldpinter.org.

Betrayal premiered at The National Theatre in London on November 15, 1978, followed by a Broadway debut in 1980. The original London production was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. It was also made into a feature film in 1981 starring Patricia Hodge, Jeremy Irons and Ben Kingsley.

Performance Details: Performances of Betrayal are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, with a 2 p.m. matinee on the last Sunday (February 3). There will be a Pay-As-You-Can Preview on Wednesday, January 9 at 7:30 p.m. and Pay-As-You-Can Performances on Sunday, January 13 and Thursday, January 17 at 7:30 p.m.

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