My Night With Reg - Kevin Elyot

Cork: City Arts Centre
July 6-7
Dublin: Andrew's Lane Studio
July 9 - 21

    Kevin Elyot’s Olivier Award-winning comic drama is the story of a group of gay friends living in London in the mid 1980s whose lives revolve one way or another around the unseen title character, the lover of one of them who seems to have had more than one night with more than just one person. It is a poignant, beautifully written play constructed around three ensemble scenes which take place over the course of three and a half years in a single apartment. It is warm and funny, but also completely believable, with characters who are more than just ciphers or symbols and emotional themes which are more than just rhetorical window-dressing.
    At a flatwarming party for Guy (Dermot Byrne), an eternal single, he says that it is not a case of him having given up the life of late as it is of life having given up on him. In the face of the mounting AIDS crisis, Guy has more or less sworn off casual sex, but as the play opens he is renewing his acquaintance with John (Dara Carolan), a friend since college but never a lover. Guy holds an obvious torch for John but in the way of these things the latter is more or less oblivious. He has just fallen in love with Reg, the enigmatic lover of mutual college friend Daniel (Robin Keogh), setting off a chain reaction of deception and betrayal which bubbles under the surface of the narrative right to the touching finale. Later thrown into the mix are Benny (Nial McCann) and Bernie (P.J. Dunlevy), a couple with some startling revelations of their own to make about Reg, and handyman Eric (Patrick O’Donnell), a young man who seems to really appreciate Guy’s warmth and sensitivity, but also understands his longing and disappointment.
    Elyot presents a set of interesting and well-rounded characters here and sets the drama in motion with a series of moments which mix spoken and unspoken feelings among them. In Guy and John’s slightly uncomfortable conversation as they await the other party guests, Guy’s infatuation is obvious, as is John’s discomfort. The reason for the latter is not revealed until much later though, and Elyot handles the exposition extremely well. There is terrific narrative momentum under the guise of constant dialogue, and the author makes sneaky in-jokey references to French art house movies throughout to signal his awareness of the potential stodginess of this kind of drama. My Night With Reg is anything but stodgy though, and the characters’ dilemmas are both interesting and dramatically coherent. Story, theme, and character are tied together well and avoid the narrative contrivances, reflective pauses, and obvious speech making which dogged the later Olivier Award-winner The Memory of Water.
    This production marks the third presentation by the new-founded Dark Horse Theatre Company. Founder Robin Keogh plays the role of the effervescent and campy Daniel, and succeeds in drawing the core of the character’s fears and doubts about his lover through to the second and third scenes (both of which follow unseen funerals). All of the company perform well, with Byrne making a sympathetic lovelorn lead and Carolan a believably blinded object of the former’s affections. Niall McCann is a standout as the butch bus driver Benny. The actor achieves a fine balance between masculine posturing and masked sensitivity. O’Donnell is also effective as the seemingly relentlessly cheerful Eric, who stands out from the other characters not just because of his age, but because of his pronounced Bradford accent and blue-collar background. Sean Colgan directs with a good awareness of the thematic, psychological, and emotional rhythms of each scene and the ensemble playing is very good indeed.
    My Night With Reg is playing in conjunction with the Dublin Pride 2001 festival (June 18 to July 1), but merits wide and general appreciation. This is a well crafted bit of contemporary drama which is touching, funny, and completely universal in theme. Gay audiences may derive more from it than casual patrons, but both will find it replete with human truth and empathetic resonance.