"Gates of Gold" at 59E59 Theatre, March 12, 2009(photo: Carol Rosegg)
In this slight melodrama, Frank McGuinness has effectively written "La Cage Aux Folles, the Epilogue." Gabriel (Martin Rayner) an actor, is dying from bowel cancer. His life partner Conrad (Charles Shaw Robinson), also his theatrical partner and director has hired an Irish nurse to see him through his end.
The bon mots and insults fly from all directions, giving an unseemly gloss over what could have been a very tender exploration of the process of dying. Instead, we get a series of dead-end plot points (no pun intended), distracting peripheral characters and unfulfilled pathos.
Director Kent Paul hasn't managed to pick up the pace, let alone line cues in this overlong 90 minute one-act.
Michael Schweikardt's set was outstanding, though it contributed to the confusion without a clear separation of rooms looking more like a NYC pre-war studio than an English manor house.
2 comments:
This play was directed by Kent Paul and written by Frank McGuinness (the Irish playwright who wrote Someone Who'll Watch Over me), not the other way around.
Correction noted - thanks!
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