Brian Marler in Betrayal

Canada Trilogy actor on Harold Pinter and J. Karol Korcynski

Apr 10, 2008 Coral Andrews

Brian Marler chats about his current role as Jerry in Harold Pinter's Betrayal at Theatre and Company and also the tragi-comedy of Canadian playwright J. Karol Korcynski.

Brian Marler, who was in Theatrefront's 2004 production of The Underpants directed by Betrayal's Daryl Cloran is a huge fan of the "dangerous theatre", especially new Canadian playwright J. Karol Korsynski, who writes fly-on-the-wall style about society's marginal element in Canada House and Canada Steel. Now critics and audiences gleefully await Canada Square.Marler is currently treading the boards (and the wood chips!) at Kitchener's Theatre and Company in a potent theatre-in-the round treatment of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal.

Jerry and Robert (Jeff Meadows) have been best friends since university. Unbeknownst to Robert, Jerry has had a long term affair with Robert’s wife Emma (Ingrid Rae Doucet) Unbeknownst to Jerry, Robert has known all along. Let the Pinter games begin...

This all starts in a pub.."Yes, that’s where my character Jerry actually realizes the whole time that he had the affair and thought he got off scot free – but then discovers that people have known all along and life is not as it was."

What the hell is he going to do now?

"Exactly. The play tracks backwards to the bedroom, to the first spark!"

Was it was hard to the learn the lines of Pinter's so-called backwards text?

"The play is essentially written backwards but it’s the same process you have with any play. You deal with it scene by scene. The only jarring effect happens when a scene ends and you realize that instead of moving forward you are going to pop back one. We did a lot of table work where we sit around researching the play and figuring out chronology of these characters and then you learn to adapt for that. Then the play takes little "hiccups", like two scenes chronologically forward and then it skips backwards again.

Pinter is a genius for the way he writes this stuff. There are so many hooks and clues and anchors in each scene that the audience can actually track quite easily these tidbits of information ; you learn, oh this person is this age now, or one of their children is that age, or they took this trip there, and it is amazing to follow the play that way."

There is always another play or three between the lines, and Pinter is of course known for his long pauses.

"There’s about 50 plays going on between the lines with Pinter. It is amazing. The subtext is of course, very strong in Betrayal. Pinter is famous or infamous perhaps for his pauses but what’s such a treat for the actor is that they are so full and they are so rife with what’s going on because every single scene is high tension and that is the beauty of these things.

What’s wonderful and exciting for me as an actor about this production is that it is done in the round. The audience surrounds us so as an actor there is zero place to hide. You are very exposed and the audience has a really intimate almost voyeuristic view of what’s going on. It’s like they are peeking through the keyhole at the intimate lives of these people."

I find this piece though set in the '70's very timely.

"Look in the news… all the stuff with the New York governors right now. This kind of thing is topical but age old as well."

Everyone louds Pinters's style but as actor it cannot be easy. What don’t you like about Harold Pinter?

"When I am doing a show, I sort of jump in with both feet. What’s not to like about Pinter? ... Well, he certainly puts me in awkward positions so as Jerry, I am not enjoying those, but as the actor that’s why I do this job. You want to be exposed and writhing under the magnifying glass with the sunbeam coming in on you. Pinter does know how to put the actors through the character in really compromising positions. That’s wonderful for an audience to watch. That’s what we go to theatre for, to see these moments of drama."

You have been in the acclaimed tragi-comedies Canada House and Canada Steel from J. Karol Korcynski’s Canada Trilogy.

"I am happy to say, that Karol is a friend of mine and a relatively new playwright on the scene. He has taken it about himself that he has always wanted to write and he has an amazing history. This man has traveled through America and South America and has real political affiliations in “left” kind of organizations, and unions – he is very strong with that stuff. He has written a trilogy of three plays, two and have been produced Canada House, the first and Canada Steel the second which just closed at (at Toronto's) Tarragon Theatre. Canada Square the third part is coming up in about a year and a half."

As Ray in Canada House, you have been described as a “boiler room entrepreneur”

"I did Canada House with Wendy Thatcher and Daniel Kash – a pretty tight strong crazy cast and it was great. I hold Karol Korcynski a lot with playwrights like Pinter and David Mamet, that kind of writing, that kind of amazing strength and discomfort and comedic darkness. Korcynski has really tapped in to that kind of stuff."

Will Canada Square, have the same cast?

"I think for Canada Square Wendy Thatcher and her partner Michael Ball from the Shaw Festival might be lined up to do it. It’s going to be a three or four header and Karol has talked to me about it as well. So of course, I would jump at the chance to do it."

Part Three – Jeff Meadows – From his first Pinter as Robert in Betrayal to the reprisal role of Victor in Anne Marie Macdonald’s Belle Moral for Shaw 2008. .

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