>>8316
>you don't have to if you don't want to.
Oh, but I do, and even went through the joys of bureaucratic efficiency cloaking what we like to call a library system hereabouts to do so. Enough of that – on to the play!
For the life of me I can't fathom why you lot would be interested in such a play … oh. Right. We are where we are and so I have something apropos to put in the subject field.
Two men have a go at resolving their differences, each in pursuit of the same love. Andrew, the reasonable upper-class devotee of social distance and detective fiction. Milo, lower class builder of others escapist dreams; the foreigner forever traveling through life in search of an upward mobility mixed with passion.
The path for both is simple straight. A clear and quick divorce for Andrew, with Milo picking up the tab for Andrew's freedom. The future of this path threatens to wind and fail in the middle distance, offering no means of reaching a happy end. Yet Andrew is sharp and clear of sight, and proposes a plan to fix their path arrow straight by slight detour at the beginning. Things quickly descend into a lighthearted comedy of yanking Milo around with increasingly silly wittiness, only to end act one in a vicious deliberate bang.
The theme of yanking chains continues throughout act two, with a caricature of Andrew's own on the counterattack. A few more twists to yank the reader around, and we are led down that path reaching an end made of monumental triumph, a monument not to love but the cold, grim, and final flash of pride's own justice.
A deeply psychological play drawn from the interplay between people of wit, seeped in comedy, and dragged through the ugliness of social hierarchy. All of it suffused in an agreeable nastiness.
I've not seen the film adaption. I think it does need some reworking for a film, which should not come as a surprise. The dialog is a little too heavy on exposition, and could use some freshening up for a modern audience to fully appreciate. Because Shaffer worked hard to weave twists in it would be a disservice not to change plot details in order to better capture his intent to deceive.
Oh, by the way, for a play created in nineteen seventy it offers up several bons mots on the alter of memes that is chan culture. Cuckoldry, last minute open invitations to faggotry, and all done in an overriding display of zest for The Game.
A goddamn brilliant find, OP.