Slippery Review – Lust and longing fill the air long after the party is over | stage

HHistory is supposed to remain, well, history. But in Louis Emmett Stern’s Tony Award-winning play, he stumbles face-first into the present. Ten years ago, Jude (John McCrea) and Kyle (Perry Williams) were a couple enjoying all things fun, partying into the wee hours of the night with a cocktail of drinks and drugs. That was until they broke up and Kyle disappeared.

Now they find themselves back together at Jude’s flat in Canary Wharf in the middle of the night, after he suffers a bad fall and Kyle is unexpectedly called to hospital as an emergency contact. Years passed and their lives drifted apart: Kyle left behind the partying lifestyle while Jude was in the early days of grief after the death of his partner Sam. They both work hard to keep up appearances. But as they talk and cook spaghetti carbonara and realize everything that has changed, their lies begin to unravel.

MacRae and Williams are perfectly over the top as these two exes, keenly aware of each other’s bad habits and pressure points but still desperate to impress. Lust and longing hung in the air between them, charged with the weight of all that could be. The quick-witted Judd transforms from sadness into a brilliant and charismatic seducer. Kyle appears calm and collected on the surface, but underneath he strives to keep everything on track. McCrea, in particular, is a wonderful entertainer, dancing out his rage one second, and sitting small with his eyes wet the next.

Judd’s apartment, designed by Hannah Schmidt, features a luxury suite style. But with its wide windows – which look like a mirror in the dark of the night – it looks like a cage. Director Matthew Iliffe finds the natural pulse in Emmett Stern’s dialogue, and his production thrives on the intimacy of loves past but not forgotten.

However, the script’s constant revelations strip it of any sense of realism, and the shock structure feels superfluous in a otherwise well-written piece. However, it remains a complex dissection of the queer dating scene and of bereavement in many forms. And watching two exes go back and forth is always compelling, isn’t it?