Park Theatre until 16 March 2019
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
Martin Sherman’s charming play follows the relationship between Beau, a man in his sixties, and Rufus, in his late twenties at their first encounter, over 13 years. Beau (Jonathan Hyde) is a pianist from New Orleans who has met and played with many of the figures that Rufus (Ben Allen) is obsessed with. Rufus is bi-polar, but refuses to take medication, and copes with his dreary career as a lawyer by escaping into a nostalgic world of film and music stars from the past. After meeting through a new gay website in 2001 for what Beau initially thought would be a one-night stand, the two men develop a beautifully written relationship, hampered only by Beau’s underlying belief that they can never have a happy ending. This appears to be a self-fulfilling prophecy as Beau’s refusal to enter a civil partnership and his insistence that Rufus should see younger men brings Harry (Harry Lawtey) into their lives.
Hyde’s brilliant and multi-layered Beau is matched by Ben Allen’s performance as Rufus. Slightly annoying and manic on first sight, Allen subtly and effortlessly shows Rufus maturing without losing his inner child. Lawtey makes an immediate impact as Harry, portraying the change from twitchy and pretentious possible drug addict to doting dad with a deft touch.
Rufus and Harry’s expectations for their relationship are alien for Beau, who lived through dark times for homosexual men. Rufus’ obsession with Beau’s stories of the past becomes a perfect framing device for a series of monologues by Beau recalling his life and experience that are a stark reminder of the prejudice faced by homosexuals in the not so distant past. Hyde is mesmeric when telling these stories, covering the fleeting freedom of gay servicemen during WW2 to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Hyde delivers the lines with just enough simmering anger and grief under Beau’s fatalistic acceptance of how life has always been for gay men. His final story, about the death of his first love in a homophobic hate crime saw lots of scrabbling for hankies in the seats around me, especially when it is revealed that this is part of his speech at Rufus and Harry’s wedding – a lovely way to show how far things have come in the UK and USA, but an ominous warning of what we could be sleepwalking back into. A beautifully paced and engrossing romance and history full of love and laughter that is simply irresistible.