“Betrayal” at the Ethel Barrymore Theater (through January 5, 2014)

Rafe Spall and Daniel Craig

(photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe)

What a bummer that the mutual sexual dalliances in “Betrayal” don’t seem as important, as icily fun, or simply as seductive as they did way back in 1980. Although it is occasionally produced, Harold Pinter’s play of interlocking affairs has been afforded some unusual attention in this revival with its chief selling point being move star Daniel Craig playing opposite his movie star wife Rachel Weisz.

At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre under the direction of renowned director Mike Nichols, all of Pinter’s wonderfully worn-out and wearisome emotional, intellectual, and conjugal betrayals, as practiced by a quartet (one unseen)of rather superficial lovers, have been duly inferred and laid out, from end to start (to use the play’s conceit).

However, it is precisely the grim banality of the long, dull affair (although this production barely survives its ninety minutes) between the play’s principal lovers Jerry and Emma that should provoke what we seem to like best about Pinter. Oddly, it doesn’t under Nichol’s detrimentally incremented directives, mainly because sex has replaced sensuality and gratuitous action has replaced closeted inference. As the story devolves in two steps backward and one-step forward flashback scenes, the mostly understated affair begins in a London pub.

Here, in the first of set designer Ian Macneil’s precisely evocative  interiors, we learn that Emma, an art-gallery owner who has not been Jerry’s lover for the past two years, is currently having an affair with a writer named Casey.

From this retrospective point, the play sets out its sequence of scenes backward to the point where an inebriated Jerry first makes a pass at Emma, his best friends’ wife, in her bedroom, during a party. Don’t quibble that neither the characters nor the situations in “Betrayal” appear to warrant the sort of introspection that Pinter affords them. For Pinter aficionados, the play offers his typical gift of minimalist phrases in a text that can be expected to ripple with rhythmic cadences. Credit, if you can call it that, goes to director Nichols for minimizing that familiar affectation.

The current cast has no difficulty with the lilt and punctuation that are the considered essence of a fully-realized Pinter play as they don’t really exist here. Weisz as Emma, Rafe Spall (who, in making his Broadway debut, and the best thing about this production) as Jerry, and Craig as Robert certainly turn words that could sound mechanical into words that sound natural, which is not meant as a compliment. With the glibness, they impart, there comes surrender to humor that may not be in the play’s best interest. It’s nice to see the good-looking Craig, famously known for his film role as James Bond, tackle a difficult role, but as interpreted is as interesting to watch as would be a department store mannequin.

“Betrayal”

Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47^th Street

For tickets ($57.00 - $152.00) call (212) 239 - 6200