WHAT is the general perception of London dramatist, screenwriter, director and actor Harold Pinter?

"I think people think Pinter is cold and full of menace, which is part of his work of course, and they think his plays are obscure and dated," says York Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster.

You will not be surprised that Juliet does not share that view. After all, she has chosen to direct Pinter's 1978 play Betrayal as part of York Theatre Royal's autumn season.

"The reality is that Pinter's writing is poetic; it's full of really well observed reflections on human beings," she says. "It's not naturalism, but it's realistic, with characteristics we all recognise,

"His plays are about the interplay of humans, which is very exciting, and I'd say they're intriguing, not obscure. He's presenting life in a way where we have to try to make sense of it, where we don't get the answers laid out in front of us."

Juliet notes how we are still most accustomed to naturalism, partly because it remains the predominant viewing currency of television shows.

"Pinter had come into an environment where naturalism was the norm in writing, as it still is in TV, but while he breaks away from naturalism, it's the differing aspects of life that he's trying to bring to life – and it's people that he's most interested in."

Why did Juliet pick Betrayal, Pinter's backwards-winding study of the high price of passion and the damage inflicted by desire in a love triangle between Emma, who is married to Robert, who is the best friend of Jerry, who is the lover of Emma?

"If you haven't seen a Pinter play, this is the one to go and see first because some of his other work is much harder to identify with," she says.

"I must confess I don't relate to all the worlds he creates as much as the style he creates them with, but this is a play where you do get the back story. Though he's still not saying why they're behaving how they are, so you can create the narrative for why they're behaving this way, but he does give you the clues to help fill in that narrative.

"That's what makes it a brilliant piece of theatre because, with each scene, you can shift your perspective of each character, which makes it engaging and intriguing. Also, without making big, broad political statements, he puts behaviour under scrutiny that we can all recognise."

Betrayal's structure goes backwards through the years of an affair on a path of loss and discovery that charts the ultimate betrayal of friend and husband, and in doing so it seeks to replicate how life's flow is not straightforward.

"It's that thing of, if you look back at your life and think 'how did I get to be in this situation?', the past situations that leap out are not necessarily linear, but you're searching to understand the overall pattern," says Juliet.

"Life is about making choices, and in this post-modern age, we put so much emphasis on feeling and reacting to a feeling, but you can't always feel one way. You might stop having the same feeling you felt at the start of a relationship, and do your actions then follow the new feeling?. It's that age-old clash of reason versus passion."

Betrayal, York Theatre Royal, from tomorrow until October 18, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm, October 11 and 18, and 2pm, October 16. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk