78 Reasons To Stay The Night
Written, directed and produced by Trevar Alan Chilver. The Courtyard Studio. Canberra Theatre Centre. August 2 – 6 2017. Bookings 62435711
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Kevi O'Brien, Daniel Greiss,Brandon J Davenport |
Community Theatre lends a voice
to the disadvantaged, the marginalized and the powerless in the face of
oppression, prejudice and injustice. It also serves to recognize minority
groups so that they may gain the
strength to receive support and recognition within the total community and the
legislation of their land. Plays such as Trevar Alan Chilver’s latest work, 78 Reasons to Stay The Night may well
offer a voice to those marginalized members of the LGBTI community who continue
to exist in the shadows of wider social acceptance. A production of this play
is therefore vitally important, and although I fear that it may simply be a
platform for the converted and members of the isolated victims of social
alienation, I would hope that Chilver’s skill as a playwright and devotion to
the cause of members of the LGBTI community may reach out to many who regard
the LGBTI community as an aberration of the “norm"
The play is simple in its
concept. Malcolm is an ageing and infirm gay. He paraded proudly with the
pioneers of the Mardi Gras movement in 1978, but now, forty years later his
health has deteriorated as has his physical beauty. He resorts to the comfort
and company of a rent boy, Tony, on a relatively regular basis to relieve his
loneliness and sexual needs. On this occasion, Tony is unable to keep an
appointment and asks his friend, Billy, another rent boy to take the
appointment. Malcolm is at first resistant to any of Billy’s advances, and the
tensions establish a barrier between 71 year old Malcolm and the 21 year old
Rent Boy who was not born until the year of the eighteenth Mardi Gras.
What occurs throughout Chilver’s
empathetic investigation of human need and gay love is a growing affection
and alliance between two unlikely individuals. The play is primarily a
duologue, outlining the history of the Gay Pride movement, its struggles and
suffering at the hand of the law and the prejudicial attitudes of bigoted, “straight” individuals. Those of us who
have lived through that time remember too well the Reverend Fred Nile. Billy’s
generation are too aware of the barriers created by Pauline Hanson and her ilk.
The play is still a work in
progress in the Courtyard Studio. A Qeen sized bed occupies most of the space
and banners hang from the low ceiling saluting the Gays, the Queers and
reminding us of their struggle with AIDS and battles to assert their human and
legal rights. Through research and verbatim report, Chilver writes a dialogue
that is authentic and written with evangelical zeal yet avoiding preaching and
didactic commentary because of its focus on the feelings and thoughts of the individual characters. Although Brandon J Davenport as the Rent Boy Billy and
Daniel Greiss as Tony work without script, Kevin O'Brien as Malcolm relies on a
script which flattens his performance. Performances are honest and natural, and
the audience is drawn into a story that is told with commitment. The play is
too long at present and could be a one act revelation without an interval.
I was not surprised to find
myself in the company with appreciative members of the LGBTI community, who
watched an erotic, informative and honest celebration of a movement that is
almost forty years old but still far from being acknowledged as another of
Nature’s world with the same rights to
be recognized, accepted and appreciated for the contribution that members of this
community have made and continue to make to the creation of a better world.