Ensemble Theatre Company has come up with a characteristically eclectic mix for its fourth summer series on the Jericho Arts Centre stage from Thursday (July 14) to August 20.

Along with The Romans in Britain, it’s presenting both a searing 20th-century work and a 350-year-old Restoration comedy—all, true to the company name, performed by a core cast that has to jump nimbly from era to era, conflict to conflict as the shows rotate in repertory.

Betrayal

Harold Pinter’s work may focus on a simple affair—the married couple Emma and Robert, and Emma’s dalliances with Robert’s best friend, Jerry—but the story spirals into unexpected complexities. Who knew of which betrayals when? Lies beget lies and Pinter plays with chronology, revealing consequences before we see what led to them. Matthew Bissett takes the helm of one of Pinter’s great works—one rumoured to be based on the playwright’s own experiences.

The Country Wife

Tariq Leslie directs this surprisingly sexually frank Restoration comedy, written by William Wycherley in the anti-Puritanical late 1600s and then practically banned from the stage for its lewdness until the early 20th century. It centres on both a rake who feigns impotence so he can safely bed married women, and a naive young “country wife” who comes to London with her middle-aged husband, only to hook up, to his horror, with every guy in town. The writing is as whip-smart as it is naughty; watch for the extended double-entendres of the “china scene”.