THE 6TH ACT Presents Two Masters Of Language in AN EVENING OF BETRAYAL

Artistic Directors Matthew Leavitt and Liza Seneca of THE 6TH ACT Theatre Company are pleased to announce their first full production with AN EVENING OF BETRAYAL. A unique combination of Harold Pinter's Betrayal and an extremely condensed version of Shakespeare's Othello, creatively adapted by Liza Seneca (of Antaeus), to mimic the reverse structure of 'Betrayal.' Elizabeth Swain (also from Antaeus), will direct. The show will open June 1st, 2018, at Theatre 68's MainStage Theatre.

There will be one preview performance May 31st, 2018. Additional info at: www.the6thact.com

An Evening of Betrayalis an evening celebrating two masters of language, Harold Pinter and William Shakespeare, as they investigate the same subject: Betrayal. The first half will feature Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" in its entirety. After a short intermission, the same four actors will perform an abridged one-hour adaptation of "Othello", told backwards to mirror the structure of Pinter's "Betrayal".

THE CAST: William DeMeritt, Luke McClure, Liza Seneca, and Adam J. Smith

While living in New York several years ago, Liza Seneca was working on the scripts of both Pinter's Betrayal and Shakespeare's Othello at the same time. While walking the streets of Manhattan, the parallels between the two kept pulling her in. It got Seneca excited about the idea of pairing these two pieces to see how these two masters of language, writing hundreds of years apart, handle what is essentially the same topic: Betrayal. She became interested in the idea of the same actors playing both plays and set out to distill Othello down to just the main storyline involving Othello, Iago, Desdemona, and Cassio. Because Emilia and Bianca figure so centrally to that plot, it became clear those characters would need to stay in as well.

Liza then wondered what would happen if she told Othello the same way Betrayal unfolded - seeing the end of it first and then unfolding the events to see how they got there. The idea of watching Othello kill Desdemona and himself at the very beginning and then tracing that journey was really exciting.

The thrill of hearing these plays together (we say "hear" rather than "see" deliberately because the evening celebrates these two masters of language) is to see how effective these storytelling techniques are despite their huge differences: Pinter is the master of economy while Shakespeare overflows with an abundance of language and unmatched poetry.

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