The Art of Infidelity

The subject of two famous British plays—Betrayal and
Closer—
is, of course, infidelity. Closer,
Patrick Marber’s third play, examines the subject in the context of
four Londoners in the middle of the ’90s; Betrayal, the most
famous of Harold Pinter’s “memory plays,” examines the subject in the
context of three Londoners in the late ’60s and ’70s. Though the plays
have much in common (they have the same social setting—what
Richard Florida calls “the creative class”), the nature and meaning of
the infidelity in Closer is vastly different from the nature and
meaning of it in Betrayal.

In Closer—worth seeing for its strong direction by Lisa
Confehr, simple but effective triphop period set, and performances,
particularly by Mike Dooly, who plays Larry—the infidelity is the
narrative mechanism that propels a lover’s journey from uncertainty to
the stable state (or stasis) of a true relationship. The four
characters—Larry the doctor, Alice the stripper, Dan the
novelist, Anna the photographer—are each seeking that one person
who will be the foundation for a final and complete relationship; and
the way to find that person, and to know for certain that you indeed
have the right person, is through cheating. Cheating gets you
closer to the ideal relationship. This is why the defining event
in Closer is the collapse of Larry and Anna’s marriage. After a
long affair, Anna leaves Larry for Dan, who is in a relationship with
Alice. But when Anna meets Larry to sign divorce papers, she realizes
the truth: Her heart belongs to Larry, who is distressed about losing
her. She leaves Dan and returns to her husband. She would never have
known how much she loved Larry if she had been faithful to him.

In Betrayal—which, like Closer, is worth seeing
for its direction, by Braden Abraham; elegantly modern set, by Etta
Lilienthal; and nearly flawless performances, by Cheyenne Casebier,
Alex Podulke, and David Christopher Wells—the infidelity is
static and even lacks passion. In fact, it’s hard to call Jerry’s
relationship with his best friend’s wife, Emma, an affair, since it
lacks those hot, volcanic, sexual pressures that force two people to
smash their marriage vows into small and irreparable pieces. Even when
the affair begins, they are cool about it. The two rent an apartment,
meet regularly, talk about family life, have sex, and return to family
life. The affair is barely a break in the boredom of a middle-class
existence of vacations to Italy, business trips to America, dinners at
Mediterranean restaurants, drinks in pubs, parties at home. The only
hot moment in the entire play (and this is very telling) is when Emma’s
husband, Robert, finds out about the affair four years after it began
(Betrayal moves back in time, from 1977 to 1968—the affair
lasts the first seven of those years). Because Robert’s moment of rage
has an exact double in Closer (Larry’s moment of rage), we must
determine its function and value.

When a person discovers that a lover has been unfaithful, that
person wants details. And not just about the length of the affair, but
about locations, positions, the intensity of the sex. As if it will
make up for all the lies he/she has heard, the cheated lover demands to
hear nothing but the exact truth. In Closer, Larry wants to know
if his wife and Dan had sex in his house (Anna reluctantly tells the
truth—they did); he then wants to know the exact location, the
precise spot they had sex (Anna reluctantly points to a place on the
stage); he then wants to know in what position they had sex (Anna
admits that Dan fucked her from behind); he then wants to know if she
enjoyed it, and if she had an orgasm, and if that orgasm was better
than the ones she has had with him (yes, yes, yes). The same mania
grips Robert in Betrayal. He wants to know where Emma fucked
Jerry, and how many times she fucked him, and if fucking Jerry was
better than fucking him?

Because the interrogation sequence is the most intense scene in both
plays, we can conclude that it is the most theatrical aspect of
infidelity. In cinema, the hot sex itself has the highest dramatic
value (because it’s visual: in Damage, for example). Onstage,
the interrogation is the thing.