 Bryan Banville and Cody Bianchi in "Midnight at the Never Get." Photo by Talon Reed Cooper The two-hander “Midnight at the Never Get” might seem like a small show for Diversionary Theatre to open its 39th season with. But the West Coast premiere of this play-with-music by Mark Sonnenblick has big and meaningful things to say about love, identity and social justice.
Bryan Banville stars as Trevor, a cabaret singer in the Village of the 1960s who because he’s gay and his audiences are is relegated to back-room “members-only” clubs that he tells us are subsidized by the mob and regularly raided. But as much as Trevor is devoted to performing, his true love is Arthur (Cody Bianchi), a keyboardist and songwriter he meets who becomes his lover and also his partner at one particular cabaret: the Never Get. Banville is center-stage at Diversionary, with Bianchi on keyboards and a sublime three-piece band to their right. The 90-minute show directed by Stephen Brotebeck finds Trevor singing the Great American Songbook-like tunes written (to him) by Arthur while telling the story of their aspirations beyond the Never Get, the arc of their romantic relationship and, achingly, the forces that would divide them. Let me step aside for a moment and credit the wonderful, atmospheric songs Sonnenblick composed for this show. The opener, “Mercy Of Love,” and closer, the heart-rending “When It’s Spring Again,” are poignant ballads worthy of that aforementioned Great American Songbook. So are, in between, “Too Late For Me” and “Dance With Me.” He’s also written clever, jaunty tunes like you’d hear in a crowd-pleasing cabaret act -- “Bells Keep Ringing” and “Why’dya Hafta Call It Love” to name two. A sensitive singer and an actor with a strong musical background, Banville embraces all of these with sparkling and tender results. Bianchi may be there more to play the piano than to sing, but it’s his subtle emotion that carries “When It’s Spring Again.” It becomes clear early in the going that the cabaret piano player is more than that, and it’s quite easy to accept that Trevor and Arthur are there, resurrecting the past, before our eyes. Their chief conflict will be clear as well: The needy Trevor loves Arthur most. The ambitious Arthur loves his music most. Where “Midnight at the Never Get” is most impactful, however, is looming above the relationship between Trevor and Arthur: the harsh reality of a shameful period in American history in which gay men were forced into the shadows and, if they emerged, subject to false arrests, beatings and even worse. You know where Trevor’s and Arthur’s tale is headed, but the ending is still a stirring surprise. Already a versatile actor as comfortable in a musical as he is in a play, Bryan Banville reaches another level of excellence in this part, reflecting Trevor’s desperate pain while clinging to hope and to his singing. Bianchi, in the more restrained and less likable role of Arthur, is a more than able counterpart, and he plays the piano the way I dreamed of playing back when I was taking lessons. In the end, love is complicated beyond lovers’ comprehension, it’s fraught with pain, and sometimes not even the right song can heal, much less promise a happy ending. “Midnight at the Never Get” runs through Nov. 17 at Diversionary Theatre in University Heights.
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