Gar and Anthony live together. Anthony is obsessive and a little possessive. He feels secure and stable in their relationship and thinks that Gar feels the same way. Gar is content with the relationship but wants to sleep with other men. Albert is the other man de jour.
But marriage and children and families become the topic and marriage seems like the next logical step. But Albert’s existence surfaces during the wedding and Gar must admit to Anthony that he really only wants to be friends with Anthony and wants to sleep around.
Boy meets boy. Boy falls in love with boy. Boy meets another boy. It’s the love story of the '60s.
We see in Gar, Anthony and Albert the very stereotypical gay “boys” of the Boys In The Band era. This makes me very sad. I thought we’d gotten past all of that; calling all gay men “boys”—and the wanton, excessive sleeping around—and the excessively unbalanced relationship with deception and possessiveness being the two extremes. And plays about gay men where sex and nudity are the basics. This makes me very sad.
The one true, clear, honest moment which has earned the single star is the last minute or two where the actors stop “acting” and we see the pain that is unavoidable in deception and dependence.
I lay most problems with productions that fail at the foot of the directors. Kate Sagovsky, the director of this piece, has let us all down. I’m not sure that she could have saved John Fitzpatrick script which has given us these cardboard characters. But I do think the Mr Hart, Carrol-Jones and Parris earn and deserve better.