Theatre

Writer Tim Fountain and actor Bette Bourne achieved a notable portrayal of ‘stately homo’ Quentin Crisp in ‘Resident Alien’. In this new two-hander, Bourne plays powerful, closeted gay LA agent Henry Willson, with Michael Xavier as the naive but well-built young hick Roy Fitzgerald who would become Willson’s most famous creation: Rock Hudson.

As Fountain points out, the clients of Willson’s Adonis-factory sound like a B-movie cast list. Many, including Hudson, were privately homosexual, though it was Hudson’s rapacious lack of discretion plus McCarthy-era pressures which helped Willson to his death as a penniless alcoholic.

Fountain’s play, which is confined to the two men’s professional encounters in Willson’s office, fails to reach out fully into their public context or private motives. However, its arch wit and affectionate cynicism are often superbly voiced by Bourne who will surely be consistently compelling once he’s more secure on the script. Xavier does a lot to make Hudson’s improbably compressed transformation from falsetto-voiced pretty boy to butch player convincing. But much of the drama happens off stage. Willson’s queer theory about macho ’50s appeal (that what thrilled his middle-aged gay friends would ring the tills with middle-aged matinee-going women too) is fascinating. So, dramatically, it’s a shame that Rock’s wife’s discovery of his sexuality and their divorce, a pivotal plot-event, is excluded from the spotlight.