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This is a a tragedy in the classical sense, a retelling of the lives of Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, which gives us a rounded history of two gay men – the unspoken truth of their relationship.
Much of what Damian Barr writes is his own imaging into the silence and absence, but in doing so he gives us a ‘fiction’ that is more authentic. Robert and Robert were not “just good friends”…
Coming from humble backgrounds their talent took them to the heart of “society”, and yet as artists at the whim of fashion when tastes changed they came crashing down again.
Would their lives have been so chaotic if their love hadn’t been illegal, or would drink have taken over irrespective of society’s attitudes – that is unknowable.
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