Underworld bereft of sentimentality

AS Gerard Stembridge's fascinating and original new play opens it seems possible that we are in for another "of those cloyingly sentimental dramas about homosexuality that have encumbered too much of "liberal" theatre in recent years. But the possibility lasts only for a speech or two as Pat hugs his ailing friend, Ginger, on the bed. Then we are clearly and instantly in a different world, where Pat is the uniformed Garda sergeant being warned by his superintendent not to be seen so obviously in gay hangouts if he is to win the promotion that he so richly deserves. The "promotion" is to the plain clothes division so that Pat can infiltrate what might be a criminal linkage between the homosexual underworld and the drugs trade, where he can mix with people with whom (it is inferred) he might feel more comfortable than an "ordinary" police officer.

And then we are into an utterly hilarious hour or so in which the author uses stereo types deftly and without exaggeration to lull everyone into a false recognition of the underworld in which Pat has lived and is now working. In the Chandleresque framework of the piece, Pat (who is never a stereotype) becomes a detective every bit as acceptable as the cool American heroes whose relationships with dames were little different from Pat's relationships with men. Besides, there are wonderful socially satirical touches and wicked local jokes to keep any audience vastly entertained.

After the interval, however, a great deal of the irreverent humour drains from the play as Pat gets entangled with some very nasty underworld characters of great outward social respectability as he is driven by his superintendent to discover just who murdered a back bench TD outside a back street sauna parlour known to be frequented by men of the gay persuasion. But by now the author has established Pat as the clean hero and honourable man who reacts to people (never mind their sexual orientation or attitudes) just like Humphrey Bogart would have done in the movies. And we're with him all the way.

This is the most liberated, explicit, unsentimental and straightforward play about homosexuality that this reviewer has seen, here or in London or in New York. It is also (at least in its first act) the funniest. It does not always fulfil its' ambitions the final scene of loving reconciliation could be a deal more moving than it is but it goes a great distance towards normalising a normal sexual orientation that too many societies have perceived as an abnormal deviance. And it very well acted, and well directed by its author.

Tom Hickey, as the superintendent, is exceedingly funny, accurately ambivalent and eventually dangerous in attitude. Peter Hanly offers a nicely understated Sergeant Pat and Shelley McGlynn is a marvelously funny and befuddled female vegetarian neighbour.

Eddie Tighe, Donal Beecher, Arthur Riordan and Martin Murphy are grand as the various villains, lovers and crooks. Go see soonest!.