Four Play is not a straight play – let’s get into it

It isn’t every day that your job requires interviewing a group of musical theatre darlings about Four Play. But here we are.

Jake Brunger’s comedy returns to London this summer, playing at the relatively new King’s Head Theatre site.

In it, Lewis Cornay and Zheng Xi Yong play Rafe and Pete respectively, a picture-perfect long-term couple stuck in a sexual rut. When they enlist the help of mutual friend Michael, played by Daniel Bravo, and his partner Andy, played by Jo Foster, things quickly escalate.

With a title as revealing as it is, some audiences may have certain expectations about what they’re going to see. But Bravo is quick to assure me: “This is not a sexy play.”

The name does set the piece up; it’s playful, a game of emotion perhaps, but I’m informed: “You won’t leave the theatre having seen the play you expected to.”

Though first written and performed ten years ago, Brunger has now revised the script to better reflect today. It’s a term that makes Cornay and Yong cringe when they say it; “Very modern, very current, very now!” they laugh.

“I guess everybody makes theatre for now, to question things that are happening, right? That’s the whole point.” Yong asks.

Cornay adds: “I do think that people will leave with questions and maybe feeling like they can have a conversation with their friends in the bar afterwards.”

Dating within the queer community has “changed radically in the last ten years,” Bravo explains. At the front of that, in this play especially, is open relationships and how they’re viewed both in queer and wider communities.

The cast would’ve been teens when the play was first staged. Foster adds: “In the last year my thoughts have changed on [queer relationships]. I feel like every queer person I meet now who’s in a relationship, they’re always open in some way, which is interesting to me. Because it’s never been something I envisioned.”

That’s what makes the play, if you’ll pardon my cliché, as timely as ever. “[Open relationships] exist in that really sort of exciting grey area,” Cornay says, “There’s not an answer. It doesn’t work for some people, but it really works for others. The play was about that then, and it’s still about that now.”

He continues: “The play is great because it’s not giving you any answers. It’s letting you decide what works for you, which is what I love.”

While we chat, Yong and Cornay are taking a break from rehearsing a 30-page scene. They’re laughing about the ordeal, explaining that everything is written so naturally in short, sharp sentences that it feels tedious to learn but will be satisfying once they get it. Presented in a thrust stage setting, the audience will act as a fly on the wall, observing these relationships as they bubble and fizz across a relentless 90-minute run time.

“I feel personally attacked by how relatable the script is,” Cornay laughs, “Jake’s done an incredible job of creating such three-dimensional characters.”

On the surface, some of the text could be considered mundane, but it sets an undercurrent. You can learn a lot about a relationship based on when and why the question “Shall we get a dog?” is raised.

With all eyes on the four and their next move, Yong suggests an almost claustrophobic feeling to the production.

Original music, composed by Benedict Cork, is used throughout and at the moment, the company, each with a history of musical theatre (SpongeBob, Why Am I So Single?, Mean Girls, and Your Lie in April, to name a few), are in the process of working out how it’ll be used to add some flow between scenes. “It’s so interesting, [Cork] has added little lines from the play and used them to create the songs,” Foster teases.

In the updated revival, Andy is a non-binary person, like Foster. Andy is “very intelligent and knows what they want,” they explain, “I think that’s really important.” Notably, Andy is the most sure of themselves out of all four.

While acknowledging it can be beautiful to see, they continue: “Not everything has to be about the trials and tribulations of finding yourself,” which they say is the focus of a lot of trans and non-binary storylines.

With all of the characters being queer, Bravo acknowledges that for each of them, their sexuality is not their whole personality or their whole storyline: “It’s about dynamics and love and jealousy and all that kind of stuff that you don’t often get to explore with a queer character in most straight plays.”

This isn’t, as you’re probably aware by now, a straight play by nature or by definition. The very notion of saying the words out loud sends Bravo and Foster into giggles.

“I feel like theatre and art are supposed to represent the world that we live in. So, it’s important to speak to the audience of the world that we’re living in, because otherwise, what are you making? What’s your point of view?” Foster asks.

Bravo agrees, stating that there has to be a reason behind each revival. “If I’m going to see a revival, I want to see something new being done with it. I think you need to approach it in a way that brings fresh eyes, a fresh perspective to it.”

By just being in the role, Yong, who is Malaysian Chinese, says he feels an idea of intersectionality that comes into play “just by me being who I am.” He credits Jack Sain, the director, who has been open to his portrayal of a character he describes as “flawed,” but “very multifaceted, like the different relationships he has.”

“I think it’s nice that we have a person of colour in that position, where you can see the different kinds of relationships and behaviour.”

Drama, Bravo says, “is much better when balanced with comedy.” All four of the performers are nothing but light during our conversations; they’re laughing about having to reveal the name of their next job to their parents (and every day when they’re signing in to the rehearsal space), working out where to sit their friends so they don’t make eye contact while in an intimate position, and genuinely thrilled to bits to be working with each other.

The comedy, Cornay says, is so “dry, sarcastic, and subtle” that it’s almost choreographed; it’s about the rhythm of movement and patterns of speech that give insight into these characters’ heads and hearts. He laughs: “Weirdly, I think SpongeBob informs every single thing that I do,” he confesses, as Yong nods as though he agrees.

“Things are more heartbreaking and more impactful when you’ve been on a journey where you’ve also been laughing and having those lighter moments,” Bravo concludes, “You kind of earn the serious moments.”

Four may play, but will there be any winners?