Gray, Simon James Holliday

Gray, Simon James Holliday (1936– ), English dramatist, whose first stage play Wise Child (1967; NY, 1972), starring Alec Guinness (in London) in a travesty role, was followed by Dutch Uncle (1968) and Spoiled (1971). He had his first outstanding success with Butley (also 1971; NY, 1972), about a university lecturer facing the breakdown of both his marriage and his homosexual relationship. It starred Alan Bates, as did Otherwise Engaged (1975), in which he played a publisher who avoids emotional entanglements; it was seen in New York with Tom Courtenay in 1977. Molly (1977) and The Rear Column (London and NY, 1978) had only short runs. Close of Play (National Theatre, 1979; NY, 1981) centres on a family reunion at which a distinguished academic, played by Michael Redgrave, remains silent while relationships disintegrate. Gray resumed his successful partnership with Bates in the comedy-thriller Stage Struck (1979), and again in Melon (1987), in which the hero, another publisher, experiences a mid-life mental crisis. Quartermaine's Terms (1981; NY, 1983), considered by some to be his best play, is a study of anguish and non-communication in a Cambridge language school. The Common Pursuit (1984) follows the post-graduation fortunes of a group of university friends; a revised version was staged in New York in 1986 (London, 1988). The popular Hidden Laughter (1990) covers the 10-year tenure of a week-end cottage by a writer and her family. His adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Idiot was produced by the National Theatre company in 1970.