Berto_Tony_201307_PhD .pdf - University of Guelph

98
play's central dramatic arc. While gay themes may be absent from the theatre's promotional
materials, their appearance in reviews selectively reinforces marginalising perceptions of
gay men (often drawn from outside the play and from Williams’s reputation) as corollary
thrills to a historical figure's biography, and to the exclusion of other aspects of the script.
The script’s clues which inform of affective aspects of Assistant and Playwright’s
relationship are seemingly missed by reviewers, or at least considered not worthy of
mention. It is interesting to note that three reviewers are out, gay men and two of these are
fellow playwrights. The papers they write for cover the range from mainstream daily to
alternative weekly. Yet they don’t differ greatly in their perspectives on the play from the
other reviewers. Gatchalian, in the gay weekly Xtra!, reiterates Williams’s penchant for
boys like Ledingham and Birnie, while failing to see the connection between the play’s
central relationship and Playwright’s creativity like Wasserman and Thomas. Only Al-
Solaylee appears to discern a commentary in the play about gay lives existing in a
prohibitive era, while simultaneously commenting about his fellow audience member’s
uncertainty about any gay themes coming at them. The amount of overall notice given to
the play’s central arc suggests that the horizon of expectation the theatre created for the
play (one that focuses on Williams) generally directed audiences’ attentions away from that
arc. Of the two sites of interest MacIvor created in his play, the conditions of production
and reception appear to have shifted focus onto the biographical narrative rather than the
dissolving relationship.
Audience
Much of the conditions of production and reception for His Greatness suggest
specific kinds of audience. His Greatness's predominantly realistic dramaturgy reflects in