Just a love story

Doran Werner, 21, is the first to admit he’s not a natural mimic. Which makes the role of a Cockney adolescent in Beautiful Thing, opening Wednesday at the Walterdale Playhouse, even more challenging.

But it’s the richness of playwright Jonathan Harvey’s colloquialisms that inspires the 2006 Paul Kane graduate. “The language has a character of its own. It is so much more a vibrant speech than we have in Canada,” says Werner, a MacEwan University alumnus last seen as a morally bankrupt priest in St. Joan and Me at the 2009 Fringe Festival.

In Beautiful Thing Werner leaps from a 15th century man of the cloth to a 16-year-old gay teenager living in London’s gritty council estates, a slum of cheap subsidized flats that propagates poverty and violence.

Jamie, a relatively unpopular and awkward lad who bunks off school to avoid football, lives with his mother, Sandra, a single parent with a string of boyfriends. Her latest find is Tony, a neo-hippie.

Jamie develops a crush on Ste, a classmate who lives in the flat next door. One night when Ste is badly beaten up by his drug-dealing brother and alcoholic abusive father, Sandra invites him to take refuge in her home.

Without a third bed, the two adolescents must share the same mattress sleeping toe-to-toe. This arrangement becomes a catalyst for a growing attraction between the two boys. “It’s really about the innocence of young love. They want something better than what they have. And if that means finding love with the next door neighbour beaten up by his family, then that’s what it is,” Werner says.

Director Justen Bennett first heard of Beautiful Thing about seven years ago, almost a decade after its 1993 premiere. At the time of its London debut, a love story between two underage gay boys in an impoverished area was revolutionary. Many of the themes struck the heart of class-conscious London — the continued stereotyping of gays and the prejudice facing the most vulnerable working poor, living in government funded housing.

“All Jonathan Harvey saw of gay culture was either horrible, gut-wrenching coming out stories or bleak AIDS stories. He knew that the life of a gay man was more than depression and angst. He wanted to show the positive side. It was something he needed to see,” explains Bennett.

It has since been made into a film and countless productions have sprung up across North America. “This is a play that touches people, that has a following. In many places, it’s lost its edge. And I like to say it’s just a love story.”

While Beautiful Thing has lost its shock value, Bennett continues to mine all the layered themes — family, friendship, love and the struggle for acceptance.

“They only have each other and there’s not much else they can rely on. They have so much against each other.”

Rather than seeing this as a gay love story, Bennett views it more as a love story of discovery for all. “It’s the way Harvey tells the story, with such charm. There’s such a hard reality to it. There’s some harsh moments, but even in harsh circumstances, there is hope and people like to be reminded of it.”