After a brilliant season of Pinter’s short plays we now get his full-length study of the complex mathematics of betrayal. But, while Tom Hiddleston is the big draw and gives a fine performance, what is striking is the spartan purity of Jamie Lloyd’s production. Of the many versions of the play I’ve seen over the past 40 years this one goes furthest in stripping the action of circumstantial detail.

Pinter famously reverses chronology so that we start with the bitter-sweet aftertaste of an affair and then backtrack in time to its beginnings. But Lloyd never lets us forget that there are three sides to an emotional triangle and that the absent partner is always there in the mind. So, as Emma and Jerry meet for a drink long after their relationship is over, we are aware of the gaunt, unforgiving presence of Hiddleston as Emma’s husband, Robert, in the background. In the Venetian scene where Robert first learns of Emma’s affair, Charlie Cox’s Jerry is both physically and spiritually present. And when the two men later have a deceptively casual lunch at a London restaurant, Zawe Ashton’s Emma sits in the shadows pensively munching an apple.

It’s a device that nails several points in one go. It reminds us of the molten intimacy of the three characters. It heightens the fact that the play is about the labyrinthine nature of betrayal. It also confirms that, as in all Pinter’s work, memory is a key factor. But what is equally startling is the absence of scenic detail: Soutra Gilmour’s design simply consists of pastel-shaded screens and a couple of chairs. This gives the action a dreamlike fluidity but occasionally I hungered for a touch of domestic realism: in particular Emma’s attempt to convert the lovers’ Kilburn flat into a surrogate home gets lost in such starkness.

The great gain, however, is that the focus is on the play’s psychological intricacy and on the acting. Hiddleston, especially, is superb in conveying Robert’s unhealed emotional wounds. His initial mocking superiority to Jerry is explained by the fact he has long been aware of his best friend’s covert betrayal. In the Venetian scene, when he learns that Emma’s affair has been going on for five years, he has the poleaxed stare of a man whose world has fallen apart. But there is a savage humour to the restaurant scene where Hiddleston stabs at a melon as if displacing his anger with Jerry.

Ashton also subtly brings out Emma’s capacity to love two men simultaneously. She suggests a free spirit yet one capable of exquisite tenderness: even when forced to confess her adultery, her hand gently traces Robert’s forearm as if softening the blow and reminding him that her passion is still intact. Cox’s engaging Jerry, meanwhile, emerges as the least complex of the three characters: an affectionate sensualist who is able to compartmentalise his desires. Yet the revelation of this excellent production is its reminder that betrayal is never-ending and that the one deceived forever haunts the imagination.

• At the Harold Pinter theatre, London, until 1 June.