A friend betrayed.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Betrayal is in the air this week.

Two different plays that open on Eugene stages on the auspicious date of Friday the 13th approach the dark topic from differing points of view.

Betrayal

Lord Leebrick Theatre Company

Wednesday through Feb. 4

Lord Leebrick Theatre Company is opening Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" on Friday after two nights of discount preview shows. Pinter won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.

"Betrayal is timeless," said Craig Willis, Lord Leebrick's artistic director. "The whole subject of fidelity and loyalty and friendship and marriage is a topic that writers have picked up again and again."

The play has just three main characters - a man, his wife, and his best friend. The latter two, of course, betray the first.

"It was totally by happenstance we chose a writer later selected to get this year's Nobel Prize," Willis said. "Pinter was given that prize for his outstanding ability to get at contemporary underlying societal issues through his writing. And I don't think those issues have gone away."

The Eugene production will be performed in the round, meaning the audience will surround the players on all sides. That gives the performance a more intimate feel, Willis said, while creating more of a challenge for the actors.

"You can hide the blemishes in a normal staging where there's at least one side the audience doesn't get to see," he said.

In Pinter's story, time moves backward - and so the actors grow younger as the play progresses.

The story opens with Emma, played by Susan Tate, and Jerry, played by Dan Pegoda, acknowledging the end of an affair that had begun nine years before. The story works backward to the encounter that started it all.

Bary Shaw plays Robert, the cuckolded husband and betrayed best friend.

Hans Christofferson directs. Jonathan Ward plays a waiter, the script's only other character. The scenic designer is Rachel Steck. The lighting designer is J. Michael Gilg. The sound designer is Christian Cherry. The costume designer is Barbara Embree. Jacs Bruscato is the stage manager.

Two preview performances of "Betrayal" are scheduled for 8 p.m. this Wednesday and Thursday. The play then opens officially at 8 p.m. Friday.

It will runs Thursdays through Sundays, through Feb. 4 at the theater, 540 Charnelton St. Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows begin at 8 p.m.; Sunday matinees begin at 2 p.m.

Admission for the Friday opening gala is $25; regular Friday and Saturday shows are $16; Thursday and Sunday shows are $12. This week's preview shows are $8. For information, call 465-1506 or visit www .lordleebrick.com.

Are We There Yet?

Actors Cabaret of Eugene

Friday through Jan. 15

The second show takes a lighter look at its subject.

Eugene funnywoman Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant's new play, "Are We There Yet?" - which opens Friday at Actors Cabaret of Eugene - might be best described as "two old friends go to the devil."

Jasheway-Bryant, who is well known in town as a stand-up comic and a teacher of comedy writing, says her script is ``like `Waiting for Godot' and `Parallel Lives' mixed up into one thing.''

``It's about friendship, betrayal and reincarnation,'' she says.

In the story, two lifelong friends, played by Kathy LaMontagne and Sue Schroeder-White, both die and find themselves in hell, where they meet the devil, played by Storm Kennedy. Reva Kaufman is the director.

"Are We There Yet" is Jasheway-Bryant's first produced play. It was done as a reading at Very Little Theatre two years ago.

"I have written other plays that haven't gone anywhere," she said. "I wrote a radio play on KLCC a long time ago. And teleplays for a family business conference."

She also has written several screenplays and has won a couple of competitions, though nothing has quite yet hit the silver screen.

Even though ``Are We There Yet'' is played by three women, Jasheway-Bryant says, it's not just about women's lives.

``Even though it's a women-centric play, it's not full of menopause jokes,'' the playwright says. ``It's totally guy friendly. I don't want men to think it's `The Vagina Monologs.' It's really about friendship, and how we try to get to know people through the course of our lives and never get to know them as well as we think we do.''

Performances will be at ACE, 996 Willamette St., at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and on Jan. 20 and 21; and at 2 p.m. Sunday and Jan. 16.

Admission for opening night Friday, with champagne, is $15; all other shows are $12. For more information, call 683-4368.

CAPTION(S):

Sue Schroeder-White (left) and Kathy LaMontagne star in ``Are We There Yet?'' The two longtime friends have their relationship tested in this lighthearted play that is being produced for the first time at Actors Cabaret of Eugene.