Douglas Dollars

Doran Werner, Joel Taras and Maura Frunza in A Beautiful Thing

A Beautiful Thing
Written by Jonathan Harvey, directed by Justen Bennett
Starring Doran Werner, Maura Frunza, Amelia Duplessis, Joel Taras and Randy Brososky
Walterdale Playhouse, Feb. 10-20

Playwright Jonathan Harvey came out to his parents when he was barely an adult. He gave them a few years to adjust, to support him and then, at 23, he wrote A Beautiful Thing (then called An Urban Fairy Tale), a hugely successful play centred around two boys falling in love. 

It was both a coming-out story for him and a response to the media in the early ’90s.

“When it was written [in 1991] it was very edgy, very risky,” explains director, Justen Bennett. “At that time, Jonathan Harvey wrote it as a response to what he was seeing in culture as representations of gay life. All he was seeing was self-loathing and oppression and AIDS and death and he was like, ‘That’s not what my life is like. That’s not what I see in my life.  I don’t feel represented here.’ So he wrote this play and at the time that was something that wasn’t seen. It was new. It was something people weren’t expecting.”

And they liked it. Its run was sold out, all five weeks of it. Within a matter of years A Beautiful Thing was made into a TV movie that was so popular it was released in theatres. It has not only been performed across the U.K. but across the world and it has been translated into several languages and has its own cult following. And yet, somehow, Walterdale’s production is only the third time it’s been seen in Canada, and the first time it’s being performed in Alberta. 

It’s a love story with teeth. Set in the early 1990s in southeast London, its characters live in the humblest of circumstances. “These are poor people,” says Justen. “One mother is working as a bar maid to support her son, the boy next door is being beaten, the girl next door is expelled. They insult one another, I mean they love one another, you can see that, but it’s not always nice. They fight, they taunt and tease. They’re rough around the edges. And in spite of all this, in the middle of these circumstances, they discover hope.”

“One of the great things about it, I think,” reveals Bennett, “is that back when it was written it was this big edgy play, and now it’s just a great story, fantastic characters, charming humour. It’s not political. I mean, for some people it will be, there are some people who are still conservative. Who still have hang-ups, who still have issues with bigotry and homophobia and ignorance, and for them it will be political because they’re going to make it political. But it’s not chosen for that reason. It’s just a great story. It’s a great play.”

“There’s something very beautiful about A Beautiful Thing,” Bennett says. “It’s just this simple charming love story.” 

And it’s just in time for Valentine’s Day.