Juliette Binoche, Liev Schreiber and John Slattery begin previews in the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Harold Pinter's three-man play, Betrayal, on Oct. 20. Helmed by David Leveaux, Betrayal opens Nov. 14 at the American Airlines Theatre.
Betrayal is Harold Pinter's classic of reversed chronology, a razor sharp drama involving marital infidelity and the playwright's keen observations about the dynamics of human relationships. It tells the story of a couple's relationship from the present all the way back to their first encounter.
Schreiber starred as Hamlet in a Public Theater production last season. Binoche won an Oscar for her performance in "The English Patient," and has appeared in many other films, including "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." The French actress made her British theatre debut in 1998 as Ersilia Dei in the Almeida's production of Pirandello's Naked. She appeared on stage as Nina in The Seagull at the Theatre de l'Odeon in Paris. Slattery has appeared in many plays on and Off-Broadway, including Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain and Night and Her Stars.
Director David Leveaux, who recently worked on the Broadway production of The Real Thing, was scheduled to helm the Roundabout production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms at the American Airlines Theatre. It would have been the third time Leveaux has directed an O'Neill play on Broadway. The venture fell apart, however, after Mary-Louise Parker left the show, opting to remain with the then Broadway-bound Proof. Betrayal is the second production to run at the new American Airlines Theatre, coming directly after The Man Who Came to Dinner, which starred Nathan Lane and Jean Smart and closed on Oct. 8.
Leveaux's Broadway productions include two other O'Neill plays — Anna Christie with Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson (Tony Award for Best Revival) and A Moon for the Misbegotten (Tony nomination for Outstanding Direction). Desire would have been his third shot at directing O'Neill on Broadway. For the Royal Shakespeare Company, Leveaux directed 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Romeo and Juliet. For the Royal National Theatre, Leveaux directed Strindberg's The Father. Since 1993, he has been artistic director of Theatre Project Tokyo, Japan, where other productions included Yukio Mishima's Modern Noh Plays, The Changeling, Hedda Gabler and Mishima's version of Jean Cocteau's Two Headed Eagle.
