Playwright Terrence McNally’s award-winning Love! Valour! Compassion! is at the Artscape Opera from 1 to 12 February 2022. Love! Valour! Compassion! is directed by Gregg Pettigrew and produced by Frans Swart.
Winner of the 1995 Tony Award for Best Play, Love! Valour! Compassion! explores the lives, loves, and fears of eight gay men in the 1990s as they meet over three successive holiday weekends, at a farmhouse in Duchess County, New York. Over the course of the summer, the men’s conversations touch on themes of infidelity, flirting, AIDS, skinny-dipping, and questions about life and death.
Cast and content
Gregory (Glenn Swart), the host of the gatherings, is a successful but aging choreographer trying to complete what may be his last major work. Bobby (Matthew Barrett), his blind and much younger live-in boyfriend loves him but is still discovering who he is and what he wants from the world. John (James van Helsdingen) is a cynical, mean-spirited, failed English playwright, relegated to working as a rehearsal pianist for Gregory’s company. His twin brother, James, a costumer for the National Theatre of Great Britain, is as kind and compassionate as John is angry and alienated. He is also dying of AIDS.
Ramon (Boris Potrenko) is John’s current boyfriend. He is a young, handsome, and talented Puerto Rican dancer just beginning his career. He is also filled with confidence, brimming with sexuality, and very attracted to Bobby. Perry (Mauritz Badenhorst) and Arthur (Richard White) are the group’s “role models.” Although they constantly bicker and feud, the lawyer and accountant have been together for fourteen years and are often the force of stability in an otherwise chaotic world. Finally, there is Buzz (Schoeman Smit), the highly charged and hilarious costumer for Gregory’s company who is obsessed with musical theatre, always ready with a sarcastic one-liner, and is usually the life of the party. Like James, he is HIV-positive, and his high jinks often mask his troubled spirit.
A human message
It’s a comedy about some comparatively privileged gay people in a world whose problems are ultimately shared by everyone.
“For me personally, I have always said that Love! Valour! Compassion! may use eight gay men as its vehicle for the story, but it is a play that’s message truly transcends sexual orientation boundaries”, say Gregg Pettigrew, Director of the production. “It is a play that every human being will take a message from and relate to.”
What: Love! Valour! Compassion!
Where and when: Artscape Opera from 1 to 12 February 2022 with performances Tuesdays to Saturdays at 6.30pm, and matinees at 2.30pm on Saturdays
Tickets: Computicket
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