When you go home today, turn on your television and breathe in the countless dramas, tragedies and mysteries of our televisual culture. As you do this, you'll soon notice a particularly pervasive plotline penetrating your senses: the Love Triangle. This malicious and spiteful human interaction has been, and continues to be, an irritatingly common theme in both film and theater, and finds its home yet again in the Hillel Theatre Group's production of Betrayal Saturday night, in Shapiro Campus Theater, a 1978 play by the famed British playwright Harold Pinter that chronicles the events of a hopeless affair gone wrong. Yet separating the play from its numerous contemporaries is easy because of its unique approach to chronology. Betrayal begins at the end of a love affair between Jerry (Sam Levor '07) and Emma (Rebecca Douglas '10) and moves backward through time, revealing the details and origins of their lengthy and passionate affair.

As the story begins-or more appropriately, ends-we are treated to an excruciatingly awkward (for both the actors and the audience) conversation between Jerry and Emma in a London restaurant; they discuss the aftermath and repercussions of their involvement. From here, the audience is grabbed by the short hairs and yanked back through time to learn who is really at fault for both the disintegration of the couple and the lives of their loved ones. Although the play's unusual approach to chronology could be jarring for someone expecting a more traditional series of events, it serves as a fascinating device for deconstructing the characters, one that engages the audience and allows them to follow closely the character development.

"Nothing is added on," Director Allie Winer '08 explained. "The characters are complete at the beginning of the show, and work their way back."

For all its innovation, the plot still suffered as the beast of the Love Triangle rears its miserable face. While initially some may be taken in by the time gimmick, the plot of the play ultimately amounts to a simple soap opera with a broken clock. And the dialogue, while well-written and often witty, occasionally finds itself stuck in the grating repetition of a single word or phrase, reminiscent of a less-inspired Seinfeld episode.

In spite of these faults, the play remained a pleasure to watch. The acting was of high quality, especially in light of the illogical and numerous changes of mood and setting. The atmosphere poured smoothly from one scene to the next, encompassing everything from uncomfortable could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silence, to palpable flirtatiousness between Levor and Douglass. Also present was Emma's husband and Jerry's best friend, Robert (Dimitri Papadimitriou '09), whose subtly alcoholic sarcasm added another dimension of humor to the show, and offered an eye-opening documentary of just how funny the British are when they're drunk.

Ultimately, Betrayal presents an interesting theatrical platter. It presents to the audience a sterile and predictable plot, yet does so with enough special trimmings-in the form of its expert production and chronological approach-to be interesting enough to watch. With all the flash and bang that went on, it was easy to forget that the same story had already been run on Telemundo innumerable times. At the end of the day, even a clock that runs backwards tells the same story as every other face in the store.