Liz Nugent - Unraveling Oliver

Oliver was just different in every way, but he was off-limits. That is what made it all so exciting. I knew he admired me. I had caught him watching me from the window of his study often enough. I knew it would not take much to seduce him. Sometimes, you just know.

It was sometime in the mid-1990s and I was starring as the Queen in the stage musical adaptation of Oliver’s first book, The Prince of Solarand . Oliver sometimes appeared at rehearsals to see how things were going or to consult on suggested changes to the text. Another writer, Graham, had been hired to write the libretto. Oliver was way too busy. Graham was delighted with how easygoing Oliver was about the script. Normally writers are unbelievably precious about changes or edits, but Oliver was fine about everything; even when quite substantial changes were made to some characters or plot points, Oliver was more than happy to go along with them.

After our first Saturday-morning rehearsal, Oliver took a few of us to lunch in L’Étoile Bleue, a regular haunt of the acting community run by Michael and Dermot, who were Ireland’s most famous gay couple. Oliver was generous. I had an easy familiarity with him by then, as we were neighbors, so it wasn’t difficult for me to be able to monopolize him at the lunch. After the meal, it was only natural that Oliver would offer me a ride home. A little wine at lunchtime had loosened my self-control, and as we approached the Avenue, I found myself telling Oliver how attractive he was. I knew I was taking a risk. I was supposed to be a friend of Alice’s, and he hadn’t actually given me any reason to think he felt anything for me. So I was rather pleased to say the least when he put his hand on my thigh.

“Would you like to go for a spin?”

I can’t claim that I didn’t know what he meant. We continued to have the occasional “spin” on a regular basis over the next two decades. In the early days, it was wildly exciting. It was my first affair—well, the first that actually meant something. I fell badly for Oliver and fantasized endlessly about how our life would be if we could be together.

In 1996, the announcement was made that The Prince of Solarand was going to transfer to Broadway after successful runs in Dublin and London and that Oliver was to be with us for the first few weeks. I really thought that this was my big opportunity. The initial run was to be six months with an option to extend if we proved successful. I was bound to get movie offers, and Oliver and I would leave our spouses and eventually move to LA and become Hollywood A-listers. Like Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe (if they’d lived happily ever after).

Oliver was being put up in the New York Plaza by his American publishers, who were schmoozing him and his agent about film rights while I and some of the other cast members were accommodated in rather shabby apartments in the East Village. Con wanted to come, of course. We had never been to New York. I told him there would be no point and that I would simply be way too busy to spend any time with him, rehearsing for the first week or two, and then in previews for another few weeks, and then eight shows a week after press night. I knew that Alice wasn’t coming. She never accompanied Oliver on his publicity tours. Quite the homebody.

Despite its getting rave reviews in Dublin and London, the Broadway producers/investors wanted some changes to the show. Big changes. Only five of us from the original Irish production were to reprise our roles. The chorus was to be all American. We would be working with a new American director, Tug Blomenfeld. Aisling, our Irish director, was furious but had little or no say in the matter and was forced to take a backseat while Tug set about reblocking scenes and demanding totally unnecessary changes to somehow justify his enormous fee. Right from the start, Tug and I did not hit it off, particularly because the first time I met him, I mistook him for a wardrobe assistant at my costume fitting and handed him my tights to deposit in the laundry hamper. He was affronted and refused to laugh it off like a normal person. Our relationship went from bad to worse. He attempted to cut a lot of my lines and had me hidden upstage half the time behind pieces of furniture or large props so that the audience wouldn’t see me. He tried to get me to sing the finale song in a different key, which did not suit my voice. In front of the entire cast, he told me to stop “hamming it up.” The shit.

I suppose it was whispered within the company that I might be seeing Oliver, not that anybody ever said it to my face, but there were a few heavy hints and awkward silences when we would arrive together at the theater or the rehearsal room. I complained bitterly to Oliver about the changes that Tug was making, but Oliver insisted that he had no influence and there was nothing he could do.

The rehearsal period was intense, but we did manage to snatch a few hours off together now and then. They were wonderful afternoons and we had rather a good time doing the usual touristy things: the Empire State, the Rockefeller Plaza, the Guggenheim, the Met, the Frick, a horse and carriage around Central Park. One night we had dinner in Sardi’s. Oliver just automatically knew how to bribe the maître d’ to get us a good table. I was very impressed. Then I spotted Al Pacino at the table behind us. I wanted to go and introduce myself, but Oliver insisted we leave him alone. He did, however, swap places with me so that I was facing Al. I tried to catch his eye a few times, but to no avail. I went to the ladies’ room a few times so I could walk past him, but I’ll have to assume that he didn’t know who I was, despite the fact that my face was plastered on a life-size poster just two blocks away. Oliver found all this very amusing. At the end of the meal, as we were exiting the restaurant, the maître d’ passed me a note. When I opened it up, it said, “Good to see you, kid. Best of luck with the show—Al”! I just about died and was all prepared to run back in to thank Mr. Pacino, but Oliver point-blank refused and much later admitted that he’d paid the maître d’ to write the note. I felt a bit silly and was initially disappointed, but I have to admit that it was a kind thing to do. That’s the sort of man I thought Oliver was. Charming and thoughtful.

Oliver was exceptionally good company. He is very well-read and knows about everything, so that an otherwise dull trip to an art gallery was turned into an endlessly interesting history of the artists’ lives or a social commentary upon the time in which the work was created. He had a quirky sense of humor too, and he just looked like a celebrity. Doormen and waiters always deferred to him. He has an air of authority unusual in Irish men. Confidence.

New York is so buzzy, so full of life at its best and worst and weirdest. It could have been a bit more romantic, I suppose, if Oliver had held my hand or something, but he was never the touchy-feely type and displays of affection were kept behind the bedroom door. I tried to get to really know him in depth on our days out, asking about his childhood or his family, but he would change the subject or get distracted and I got the distinct impression that he didn’t like talking of his past. To my annoyance, he talked rather a lot about Alice—how skillful her illustrations were, how much of an effort she was making to improve her culinary skills, or how she respected him and always consulted him before making a large purchase. It was infuriating, actually, how easily he could sing her praises and kiss me hungrily all in the same minute. I’d never met somebody before who could compartmentalize his life in such an unfeeling manner. And yet it was so bloody attractive. I bit my tongue and agreed about what a little treasure Alice was as I draped my leg around his neck.