In that office is a man, William O'Halloran, played so beautifully and specifically by writer, co-producer and performer Mark Salvestro. And he just received a letter that will change his life.
This is the story of two Williams, O'Halloran and Shakespeare. And how the love of the bard led to our English professor finding love with Henry, one of his students, and then being fired as a result.
It was a complete accident that we saw this on the same night as Mardi Gras, but it definitely felt appropriate.
Salvestro is amazing. There is so much lightness and deftness to his performance, and so much specificity. From his continued eye contact with the audience at specific moments, to his use of a slight stammer to indicate the abject terror of this man whose life has begun to unravel before his eyes thanks to the dismissal letter from the university. His mannerisms as he tells his story just captured my heart, and I had the overwhelming urge to tell William that everything would work out okay eventually and that there was nothing wrong with him.
There is also the way that Salvestro weaves in passages from Shakespeare into his writing without it seeming jarring or glaringly obvious. In fact there were several times when I only realised he'd switched to Shakespeare when we were already mid way down the rabbit hole or a line I recognised came up (I know there was some Romeo and Juliet, some Hamlet, and then I think there were a lot of the Henrys and possibly some of the Richards). And it wasn't just the strength of his performance, it was also the strength of his writing, allowing his prose to stand up against extracts from Shakespeare.
At the same time, his description of that first forbidden kiss, that first new touch, the insecurity melting away under the warmth of action and emotion that just feel right, that make you feel alive, felt painfully real. And all the more painful given the background of the times, where homosexuality wouldn't be decriminalised until 1980 in Victoria and that the prevailing emotion for most men in William's position in his time was to feel deep shame and disgust about themselves and about their perfectly natural wants and desires.
Without spoiling the ending, I was afraid things would take a tragic turn for our William, but I was genuinely pleased that his story went in a different direction, one where he was in control of his own story. So much so that it left me wanting to know what happened next, always a good sign.
yani's rating: 5 unbuttoned shirts out of 5
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