Daniel's Husband ★★★★

To get the truest experience of Miami playwright Michael McKeever’s newest Off-West End debut, Daniel’s Husband, it is best to go in completely blind. One needs to know nothing more than that the show is a 90-minute straight-through exploration of the importance of gay marriage – with a charismatic cast of five: two gay couples and the titular Daniel’s mother.

That said, if you would like to know more, be aware that you will not have the experience – likely the intended experience – that many theatregoers will have with this play. You are warned.

Daniel’s husband is a play of two distinct halves. The first is a charming and delicately balanced comedy of manners – a dinner party with friends, a visit from mother, and a warm, gentle atmosphere where the cast good-naturedly jab and jostle each other as days trickle by between scenes. The core drama of the play is here established: Daniel’s partner Mitchell (Luke Fetherston) does not believe in gay marriage. Daniel himself (Joel Harper-Jackson) does and wants to be. This half gives the actors all the room they need to shine, and shine they do. Harper-Jackson’s Daniel is masterful – both brusque and vulnerable, it is an extremely sensitive performance. Liza Sadovy, as Daniel’s mother Lydia, is also a complete delight, commanding the auditorium’s laughter from the moment she hits the boards.

Perhaps, however, as the laughter fades, there is a moment where one might begin to wonder where this is all actually going. The drama is established, but there doesn’t seem to be any escalation of conflict. This is when the play enters its second half, revealing its true form: an unrelenting tragedy.

And Daniel’s husband is a tragedy in its purest form. There is no remittance, no reconciliation – the only lesson to be learnt is that life can change suddenly and for the worse, so don’t waste it dying on an ideological hill. If that seems a far cry from quips about too-young boyfriends made over several dozen glasses of prop Malbec, that’s because it is. But that’s what makes this play so interesting.

In Greek tragedy, an audience is primed to know what is coming. Perepeteia, the reversal of fortune, the great fall, the “turning point”. The tragedy, basically. A great deal of this priming is contextual, rather than textual. It is not done within the play itself but within the culture or the knowledge of the genre. Audiences are aware of what is coming, which enables a tragedian to play with the tension arising from that dramatic irony. Daniel’s Husband doesn’t not have that contextual priming. Perhaps we might have heard something in advance, or known something about the writer’s oeuvre, or have read a review online (haha.) In all likelihood, however, we arrive unprimed for the tragic reversal. It becomes a twist. A surprise.

It is no small thing for a performer to have to consider that kind of journey, that kind of surprise. Or for a director to have to consider how to keep an audience on side when there is a significant risk of whiplash-induced disconnect. But they manage to pull it off. The performance, the direction, the design, it holds you in. Sadovy becomes terrifying in her obstinacy; Luke Featherstone takes on an almost vibrating pain.

The production quality in general is tremendous. Justin Williams’ set – an immaculately furnished mid-century modern apartment belonging to an architect – is both gorgeous and completely believable. Jamie Platt’s lighting design in particular is absolutely beautiful – dawn light creeping in through windows in the morning, street lights at night, light trickling into a dark living room from the kitchen – these moments are delicate and powerful, exemplifying the cast’s stillness or movement with wonderful subtlety. The staging and blocking are also perfect – in that they are completely natural and therefore invisible. The few physical moments of drama occur seamlessly.

The play doesn’t lose its comedic tone into the second half; a line here or a turn there reveals McKeever’s predilection for comedy still bubbling away beneath its surface. But its bones have been revealed now, and they are the dry, white bones of tragedy. Raiko Gohara, as Barry’s younger boyfriend Trip, is a much-needed respite in this half, his terrific timing and physicality granting him some great comedic beats.

David Badella, as the couple’s friend Barry, also shines, a grounded, charming, bassoon-voiced presence that carries one throughout these darker scenes. One thing that stands out about these two in particular is their terrific poise. Both seem as relaxed and comfortable on stage and with each other as you would expect to find them four hours deep into a gong bath.

Daniel’s Husband is funny, heartfelt, and completely crushing. It is genuinely ambitious to squeeze such a devastating tonal shift into a piece that scarcely touches the length of a football game – and that alone makes this play worth seeing. Barring that, director Alan Souza and his team have managed to blend these ideas and feelings into a cohesive production that will leave you thinking.