''Going On'' is a comedy play by

Charles Dennis Charles Dennis is a Canadian actor, playwright, journalist, author, director, and screenwriter. Background Dennis is the third son of Sam and Sade Dennis. He attended Cedarvale Public School, Vaughan Road Collegiate, and University College at ...

, set in a

dressing room Dressing commonly refers to the activity of putting on clothing. Dressing may also refer to: Technique * Dressing (medical), a medical covering for a wound, usually made of cloth * Dressing (knot), the process of arranging a knot * Dressing, the ...

of a

Broadway theatre Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, American and British English spelling differences), many of the List of ...

Plot

The play concerns the relationship between two

understudies In theatre, an understudy, referred to in opera as cover or covering, is a performer who learns the lines and blocking or choreography of a regular actor, actress, or other performer in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to ap ...

waiting backstage during the run of a Broadway hit and hoping for their chance to go on. The characters are called Alfred and Lynn, a tribute to the legendary Lunts and the long-vanished theater they represented.

Debut and award nomination

The play was originally produced at the

Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featur ...

in 1989 and starred Charles Dennis as Alfred and Gwendolyn Humble as Lynn. It was nominated for the Daily Express Award for best new play.

Reception

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' wrote: "Robust dialogue and carefully managed shifts of mood between the comic and the sad have you constantly uncertain whether to laugh or cry." ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

'' wrote: "It's funny, moving and intelligent but, most of all, a celebration of what it means to be cursed by a thespian calling." In 1990 Dennis played Alfred again opposite

Maria O'Brien Maria O'Brien (born 14 May 1970) is an English darts player who plays in World Darts Federation (WDF) events. Career O'Brien reached the Semi-Final of the World Masters in 2016. In 2017, she reached the Last 16 of the BDO World Trophy The ...

's Lynn at the Callboard Theatre in Los Angeles. In 1991, the celebrated critic Sheridan Morley wrote about a British touring production featuring Giselle Wolf as Lynn and Tim Earle as Alfred in the ''International Herald Tribune'': "Let us cheer the arrival at the Latchmere in Battersea of Charles Dennis's ''Going On''... It's a love story about two latter-day Broadway understudies, torn between a fervent desire to get onstage and a deep terror that they may suddenly be called on to do so. But 'Going On' does not only mean going on stage: It also means going on with lives that seem often hopelessly bereft of love or purpose or success. The major triumph of Dennis has been to write a very conventional odd-couple love story within the unconventional frame of understudy lives. These people are forever imitating their Hollywood and Broadway betters, because that is what they are paid to do. They also live, like Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, on the fringes of reality until they are suddenly thrown into the blazing lights, albeit as unprepared and under-rehearsed for their show as they are for their own awakening feelings of love. Having made self-absorption into an art form, having lived within the conventions of a horror movie where parents crucify themselves on satellite dishes, they lurch from Ibsen and Strindberg into Coward and Shaffer stereotypes, all the while waiting for the prompter to come to the rescue." Dennis later played Alfred opposite Lane Binkley's Lynn at

The National Arts Club The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'', to "stimulate, foster, and promote publ ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1997. The play was performed again in 2011 at the Pensacola Shakespeare Theatre in Pensacola, Florida with Geraint Wyn Davies as Alfred and Claire Lautier as Lynn.

References

{{reflist Canadian plays 1989 plays Works by Charles Dennis Plays set in New York City