Mauckingbird stages Harvey's 'Beautiful Thing'

Jonathan Harvey’s play Beautiful Thing is not a heavyweight masterpiece of contemporary gay theatre — but neither is it a throwaway piece of fluff. It’s a sweet, middle-of-the-road romance with no great claims to profundity. However, it is one of those plays where the more you bring to the table, the more satisfying and enjoyable it can be. The Mauckingbird Theatre Company’s current production is adequate in most technical aspects, but alas lacks the added oomph required to make it really shine.

The play’s primary focus is the budding love affair between two teenage boys-next-door. They live in a working-class English housing development, Jamie with his single working mother, Ste with his (unseen) alcoholic father. Ste often takes refuge with Jamie and his mother whenever his dad goes on an abusive binge, which apparently is relatively often. Through the course of the play, the boys come to realize they’re falling in love, and as the affair progresses, each must also deal with his different coming-out issues.

Harvey’s script has a great deal of potential, but is seriously dependent on the level of wit and artistry the actors and director are able to inject into the rather run-of-the-mill story. Mauckingbird has pulled together an adequate but unsatisfying package. The cast boasts a great deal of charm and appeal, but the director, Peter Reynolds, though technically capable, seems to lack emotional understanding or nuance.

Griffin Back plays Jamie and Kevin Murray the allegedly more jockish Ste. They are both appealing, attractive performers who manage decent working-class English accents. Beck does a believable bookish, nerdy type, though Murray didn’t quite manage anything resembling the jock demeanor that the script called for. They also had the beginnings of some nice chemistry, but neither was able to deliver on the potential depth of his character or the promise of their budding relationship.

Where'd that come from?

I have to place the majority of blame for this inadequacy on director Reynolds. It didn’t seem that he had any handle on the inner lives of the characters, which left us with a love story without much heart. There were any number of emotional points that needed to be explored in order to see a real emotional connection between Jamie and Ste. For instance, we see next to no nuance of interaction between the boys to show that a deep attraction is developing between them. As a result, their affair just sort of pops up out of nowhere, without giving us any reason to believe that this relationship is anything special.

Another emotional vacancy had to do with the rapidity with which both boys cope with their internalized homophobia. Both Back and Murray have scenes expressing their fears, but there is no follow-up, as if once they’ve completed their angst monologues, everything is suddenly hunky-dory. Part of that can be blamed on the script, of course, but could easily have been improved had the director worked with his actors to add more depth and nuance to the latter scenes.

The final result is a cute little play that is mildly amusing, with actors you really want to root for and empathize with a lot more than is possible here. I’d give the play a mild recommendation, mostly because Beautiful Thing is a relatively important part of the contemporary gay repertoire, and Mauckingbird’s presentation isn’t bad, just kind of shallow. But I also recommend it because I really did like the two leads and enjoyed watching their peformance — if only I weren’t so conscious of how much better they could have been had they had stronger directorial guidance.