Helen Hunt, Ian Barford, Robert Sean Leonard take on Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" at Chicago's Goodman Theatre

Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt is center stage at the Goodman Theatre in the classic 1978 Harold Pinter play "Betrayal."

Hunt plays Emma in a story examining the end of her marriage to her husband, Robert — played by Steppenwolf Theatre Company member and Tony Award nominee Ian Barford — and the beginning of a new relationship with her former lover, and her husband's best friend, Jerry — played by Tony Award winner Robert Sean Leonard of "Dead Poets Society" and "House" fame.

In "Betrayal," the action runs backward in time. As described in "Playbill," the reverse chronology has the effect of "uncovering hidden truths and revealing how little we know about those we think we know so much about."

Hunt won the best actress Academy Award in 1997 in the romantic comedy "As Good As It Gets" alongside Jack Nicholson, and starred alongside Bill Paxton in the 1996 disaster action film "Twister." Hunt also starred in the TV comedy "Mad About You" alongside Paul Reiser, earning four Emmy awards.

She told CBS News Chicago that in starring in "Betrayal," she wanted to keep the content of the play raw and real.

"This play and this part, I'd been offered it on Broadway years and years ago and wasn't able to do it, so it was lingering as an unfinished piece of business, and then Susan Booth, the artistic director of your beautiful theatre, brought it up," Hunt said, "and I said yes, as long as we can do the messy, bloody version of this play — because I've seen a sort of pristine, nobody-suffers-too-much version, and I don't think the title warrants that."

While some say Pinter's work is hard difficult to digest, Barford said "Betrayal" is not. Rather, he said, it enthralls as a "wonderful puzzle."

"There are lies told in every scene. There are truths told in every scene. Unlike most stories, it's told in generally reverse order," Barford said. "So the audience gets to decipher the impact of the story in a completely unique way, and from my point of view, it's a very sophisticated puzzle if you're listening and pay attention…. He's kind of leaving a little crumb trail for you throughout the play."

Leonard offered a philosophical perspective on what he hopes people take away from "Betrayal" — namely that theatergoers will come away with an appreciation for what they have in their own lives up against the tragedy and discord in the plot of the play. He referenced a quote from Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," in which Emily says, "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it… every, every minute?" and the stage manager replies, "No. Saints and poets maybe… they do some."

"No matter what you see, I think that should be the goal, is that you go home and maybe realize your life a little more. You look in and smell your daughter's hair… just realize your life and what you've got, and how precious it is," Leonard said. "I sort of think that's the point of any, for me… plays that are kind of, Eugene O'Neill, and plays that have some blood in them and were painful to write, to me, that's the point is you go home and think of your life a little differently than they did before."

"Betrayal" is onstage at the Goodman through March 30.