April 18, 2008

The Performance Art of Itamar Moses

By JULIA M. KLEIN

For this playwright, artifice comes naturally

"If I could turn back time" — so begins one pop anthem regretting harsh words and lost love. In the theater, time can reverse itself — but nothing is necessarily undone. At least, though, what has been sacrificed can be made clear. In Betrayal, Harold Pinter's 1978 drama of adultery and friendship, the backward narrative unearths deep layers of treachery. Stephen Sondheim and George Furth use the same device (derived