How do you get over being gay?
That's not the question posed in Stef Smith's new play about one woman's coming to terms with her sexuality, but it is the driving force behind the people who run the sort of clinic the woman attends in the hope of "curing" her homosexuality and getting her some well-earned credit in the straight world.
In Ros Philips' fluid production, Julie Hale's Susan flits between the clinic, her home life caring for her ageing mother and a burgeoning romance with a more experienced woman.
Beyond her initial state of denial she is forced to square up to old episodes of American sit-com The Golden Girls, the trials and tribulations of the dating game and the secrets of something the clinic calls "heterosexual holding". And she has a 40th birthday to deal with too.
While all this is told in a broadly comic sweep that makes such cranky institutions as the one depicted appear ridiculous, there is an underlying seriousness to the play as well.
Clinics and attitudes like this actually exist, preying on the insecurities and fears of their patients as well as those around them - and the more they are discredited, the better.
This Glasgay! commission isn't a lecture, however, and, with the versatile Mary Gapinski playing all roles other than Susan, its 70 minutes are peppered throughout with a warmth and a wit that serves the subject well. Hale plays Susan without archness or quirks, which makes her plight all the more recognisably ordinary. Ultimately, then, this is a play about reconciliation; between Susan and her mother, her lovers and, most importantly, with herself.
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