(A summary of the play was already posted separately; This is my own review of the play)

Featuring only 2 people and a stage which we get (4) different views of throughout the night but whose setting does not change, What The Night Is For keeps the focus on the story of two former lovers, what they were, what they might have been, and what they still hope to be. It reveals the flaws they hadn't previously shared with each other, their rationalizations, needs, and the problems each had with their respective lives as those had turned out.

The stage was dominated by a square platform, underlit between acts with blue lights as it rotated to provide a changing perspective on the hotel room as the evening went on. Off-stage action was involved a few times, and was used to good effect (getting ice from the hallway, showering, pushing the room service cart back into the hallway). Likewise, good fun was poked at the problems people have with technology: the alarm clock in the room would periodically "randomly" go off, playing music suitable for dancing, of course. And the hotel bar was raided more than once throughout the night.

Of course, there's more to a good play than the set... There's costumes! We get to see Gillian start in a nice suit, stockings and heels, with a well-coifed hairdo, and progress to mussed hair, then to nude (but under the covers of the bed), in satin pyjamas, and finally in a bathrobe. Roger goes from suit to nude to shorts and a shirt, to bathrobe, and finally back into his suit and ready to leave. The suits portray the airs each put on to see the other for the first time in 11 years, and of course the progression to night clothes, and then to bathrobes, shows their increasing level of openness with each other as the night wears on and the layers of insulation each had wrapped on themselves to steel against the rigors of life wear off.

The most important part of a good play is a good story. This one is a fully fleshed out story that no doubt is familiar in its concepts to many people in long term relationships: the idea that you settled for someone who showed an interest when your ideal mate was out there, perhaps already known to you and feeling, like you, that the other would never have you. The effects of throwing away much or all of their established lives to be with each other, on both Lindy and Adam, and on their families, are an inevitable part of this, and the part which no doubt keeps many couples together where at least one partner feels mismatched.

The story isn't tedious, nor the dialog ponderous. It flows well, and while more light-hearted than poignant, more humorous than serious, it still portrays the emotions of the characters in a manner which allows the audience insight into their actions, and an opportunity to sympathize with their plight as a result of their choices. It's certainly not the best work, but I would certainly say it's good; I connected well with it.

Finally, if your actors do a poor job, even a good play can be ruined. Certainly, this was not the case here. You could argue that I'm biased, and there may be some truth to that. However, I found both Roger and Gillian to be very believeable in their parts, to offer a very real feel of a couple who hadn't been with each other in 11 years. I think that perhaps the two didn't have quite so much of a spark as Gillian did with David Duchovny, but the circumstances here are different: in that case we saw a relationship build over time, with an undercurrent of attraction being masked by the professional relationship the two expected to share, whereas here we see two people reconnecting after many years apart. What was there worked. Certainly this didn't present the opportunity for the range of acting that "House of Mirth" required of Gillian when she portrayed Lily Bart through her descent from the upper crust of society, but she delivered an impressive performance nonetheless, offering recriminations after their first intimacy of the night, as well as an impressive bipolar episode while on the phone with her husband, even if the tirade was not quite as memorable as the scene in the X-Files episode "Beyond The Sea" where she marches into Luther Lee Boggs' cell and delivers a verbal wallop to the prisoner. Likewise, I understand Roger to be an award-winning actor, and while not familiar with his other work, his portrayal of a man able to see past Lindy's faults and continue to desire to bask in the joy of their relationship felt very real to me.

So, while this is perhaps not the best vehicle for the range these actors are capable of, both do a good job of filling the roles of the characters they play; The audience is definitely drawn into their story as they accelerate through an evening from cordial to intimate, calm to panicky, and finally to uncertain.