VoxCarnyx

Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Theatre reviewing has never been the domain of VoxCarnyx, but Martin Sherman’s new play I’ll Be Seeing You, for Pitlochry Festival Theatre, titillated our musical curiosity. 

Why? It centres on the outrageously camp showmanship of pianist/entertainer Liberace, a candy floss figure described by the Daily Mirror columnist “Cassandra” in 1959 as “a quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love”. Liberace had taken the Mirror to court, falsely denying the paper’s charges of homosexuality, and won.

This deceit lies at the heart of Sherman’s fast-moving theatre piece.  A young gay writer, commissioned to write a play about Liberace, and feverishly portrayed by Fra Fee, is not only consumed with hatred of the star’s disingenuous court denial, but ultimately falls prey to his acid manipulation. It delves, sometimes brutally, below the facade.

Who better to capture that edge than Simon Russell Beale, whose numerous pumped-up, attention-grabbing showbiz entrances – smoke-filled, fur-lined and massively bejewelled – give way in an instant to a much nastier piece of work. In these moments, strength lies in devious understatement. 

Thankfully there’s humour too, dark and light, augmented visually by a choreographed duo of hammy hunks (Ali Watt and Adam Kashmiry), Russell Beale’s impressively flamboyant dummy keyboard syncing, and Tim Hatley’s mischievously versatile stage designs. If this production, directed jointly by Alan Cumming and Ben Occhipinti, is unruly verging on the manic, it doesn’t lack affection. The audience, encouraged to contribute, is drawn in from the word go.

For those too young to remember Liberace in person, his back story – from awkward piano-playing kid and wannabe classical virtuoso to lush caricature and top showbiz earner, ultimately succumbing to HIV and death at 67 – is neatly and swiftly inserted. His Polish-born actress mother (Anne Lacey) is thrown in for good measure. 

But the music is just window dressing and the emphasis persistently returns to the Writer’s – indeed Sherman’s – angry bone of contention. For in the final moments, Sherman replaces Fee on stage as the now elderly playwright, pitifully namby-pambied by Liberace, visibly defeated. 

Ken Walton 

(Photo: Tiu Makkonen)

I’ll Be Seeing You runs at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 11 October. Full details at www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com