London in the 1960s and 1970s
Harold Pinter’s BETRAYAL is set in a specific era, but it’s no period piece
Onstage at Lantern Theater Company January 10 through February 17, 2019, Betrayal is set in London during the nine-year period of 1968 to 1977. The play was written in the midst of major social and political tumult, and those changes inform the characters’ choices. The play is far from a period piece, however; while the times inform the decisions, Harold Pinter’s characters make choices and take actions that are painfully recognizable to us today.
The affair at the play’s center begins in 1968, in the thick of the Swinging Sixties, the period from the mid-to-late 1960s characterized by explosions in art, music, and culture, driven by the younger generation. The United Kingdom was finally recovering from World War II, and Britain’s national military service ended in 1960. The Baby Boomer generation came of age in a time of unprecedented freedom, decreased responsibilities, and renewed economic prosperity.
This more relaxed generation flocked to London, transforming the city from its post-war austerity into a colorful, cultured, and stylish metropolis. The young and creative transplants to the capital inspired a cultural and consumerist revolution, focusing on fashion, modernity, and hedonism that reflected the increased freedom they experienced in comparison to their parents’ generation. The Beatles, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, and Dusty Springfield all flourished, and the world took notice. Pirate radio, hitting the airwaves from ships off Britain’s shores to avoid restrictive broadcasting laws, provided the sounds and some of the rebelliously joyful spirit of the times. The miniskirt — and the early supermodels who sported it — became a staple of the Swinging Sixties closet, along with the bright and patterned style popularized on Carnaby Street.
The Swinging Sixties were well publicized and documented, but they were also highly localized and specific; it was strictly a youth movement, confined to London. While many of the cultural aspects found wider popularity, the free and hedonistic lifestyle that spawned much of it did not extend beyond middle-class, young Londoners.
The blossoming of London during this decade proved to be fertile ground for an affair to bloom. According to Joan Bakewell, whose affair with Harold Pinter inspired Betrayal, “Some things stay the same: men and women have always fallen passionately in love.…Sixties London was a good place to have an affair. They were giddy times, and the city’s young people were buoyant with a creative optimism that made people inclined to smile rather than frown. And people always smile on lovers.”
Bakewell and Pinter found it to be an easy time and place for trysts. The joyous and pleasure-seeking time meant friends and acquaintances were happy to help, lending flats for rendezvous and keeping mum on the details. The owner of their favorite restaurant indulged them. And the hedonistic mood in the city reflected and fed the giddiness of a new affair; according to Bakewell, “We were so in love we felt it was worthwhile to dash across London to spend half an hour in each other’s company.”
The cultural shift of the time had tangible effects that stretched into the 1970s and today, and impacted Pinter, Bakewell, and generations to come. British divorce laws were overhauled in the late 60s, making it easier to dissolve a marriage. Birth control and abortion became legal and more widely available by the end of the decade. And these movements toward greater autonomy for women rippled into the 70s, when legislation aimed at addressing hiring and pay inequality for women sent many more into the workforce.
For Bakewell, the tension inherent in being highly educated, ambitious, and a member of the middle class at a time of rapid social change led in part to seeking fulfillment in the affair with Pinter. Speaking of one of Betrayal’s central characters, Bakewell says “Emma’s life was very much that of a woman of the Sixties. She is basically a housewife with a small child. As I was. I had married at 22 to someone who had been a fellow student at Cambridge…once my daughter was born when I was 25, I gave up any idea of working. The concept of a career simply didn’t arise. I would be a wife and mother. But I was also a Cambridge graduate. I got restless for some life of the mind.” It was in the search for intellectual and creative fulfillment that Bakewell came to know Pinter.
But that same opening up and chasing stimulation also did the affair in, in a struggle that mirrored many couples confronting a changing landscape that offered more opportunities for women. According to Bakewell, “I got my break in a BBC television programme called Late Night Line Up in 1965. Running a family, an affair, and a career was exhilarating but in the end unmanageable….We gave up the flat. We brought the affair to an amicable end.” The realities brought into being in the 70s by the fantasies of the 60s were reshaping lives in tangible ways, and sometimes painful ones.
Despite being inspired by and set in part during this iconic period, Betrayal resonates today. The changes of the time are reflected in spirit in our own: conversations around the way the younger generation interacts with and shapes society are common. The role and rights of women in the workforce and for their own bodies and partnerships are constantly debated. The specifics have changed, but the overall shape of cultural discussions remain.
Even more importantly for the play, though, the specifics of the time are background for the timeless psychological needs and desires of the characters: fulfillment, love, excitement, danger. In pursuit of personal fulfillment, they betray their partners, their friends, themselves, and their youthful ambitions. The historical details stay outside, letting the characters exist outside of the specifics, reflecting needs and choices that could easily be made today. It is not a story of the 60s and 70s in London, but one of then and now, of choices and deceptions that persist across eras and continents.
Betrayal is onstage at the Lantern January 10 through February 17, 2019. Visit our website for information and tickets.
