One of the last student productions of Trinity Term 2017 has taken place in Bernard Sunley Theatre in St Catherine's College – an unusual location for student drama which nevertheless has gathered audiences larger than the BT or Michael Pilch Studio usually do. It is a pity there are only three performances, as the director (and author of the play) and her actors seem to have put much work and passion into it. The play is called Arseholes (with an explanation 'a new play about Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlain), a name which is designed to draw interest to the play's possible obscenities or general rebellious drive, but in my mind does not fully reflect its rather romantic (though slightly melodramatic) nature. 'Le Sonnet du Trou du Cul' (The Arsehole Sonnet) indeed existed, but I don't think this fact alone is able to convey the complexity of poets' relationship – but it was the author's choice and one cannot deny it works as a gripping title.

The play is well-researched and describes the relationship between two symbolist poets from the very first appearance of Rimbaud in Verlaine's household to their final meeting in Brussels where several gunshots were fired by Verlaine. This final meeting is cleverly developed through a series of flashforwards throughout the play (where the light changes to a starker, less naturalistic one to attune us to a leap in time) and when the story of the poets finally reaches its end, this scene also has its final moments. The play by Julia Hartley is quite clear in its intentions (sometimes too much so), and shows how the relationship of two poets was a rebellion against bourgeois morals of the time and, while portraying Rimbaud as a purposeful hooligan without doubts about his righteousness, it shows Verlaine as a more complicated character, veering back and forth between his love (and lust) and his family obligations. The characters are sometimes too direct in letting us know what they think or feel, and one gets a feeling characters speak author's thoughts about themselves rather than their own, as if they were in a public argument rather than in an intimate family or friends' circle. But this straightforwardness, once one is used to it, adds some additional charm and youthful vigour to this show.

The play has fifteen characters including Verlaine's wife and in-laws, and members of the 'Bad Men' circle - Théodore de Banville, Charles Crol, Mallarmé – as could be seen on a famous Fantin-Latour's painting 'By the table' in Musée d'Orsay. While Hartley as playwright divided the play into three types of scenes – family scenes at Verlaine's house, public scenes in a 'Bad Men' poets' circle (and lessons of French to students in London) and intimate one-to-one moments between Verlaine and Rimbaud, Hartley as director sets all these three elements of her play in different registers. I must admit I liked the family ones least of all – despite excellent acting from a beautiful and gracious Tamar Koplatadze (Verlaine's wife Mathilde) who tries to persuade Verlaine to come back, as well as from imposing Steve Goddard and funny and exquisite Keshya Amarashinge who play Mathilde's parents. These scenes always slow the play down and I can feel that the author's heart is not in these interludes in the play's real action. Besides, Verlaine always looks like a one-dimensional punished boy ridden with guilt and fear of his father-in-law rather than a husband, so there is no real dimension to his family tragedy in the play.

The public scenes ('Bad Men' gatherings and student lessons) are much more lively and actually really fun and funny to watch. I really enjoyed the poetical readings and discussions (all translated from French by Hartley herself), as well as a wonderful piano accompaniment by Matt Gibson which created a perfect 'flaneur' mood for these scenes. Seth Whidden (himself an expert on Rimbaud) plays a wise Banville, while the francophones Jilian Blum and Dadid Rochat are convincing in their dislike of Rimbaud's present and real affection for Verlaine. Freddie Woolf's (Mallarmé) only line in the play 'I have an orgy to attend' is one of those moments which put the whole house on the rocks. The student lessons in London are also very funny (thanks to ironic Alex Wilson who plays the boy, and articulate and earnest Nicole Rayment playing the girl) and have a nice contrapuntal quality to them, as the scenes with Verlaine and Rimbaud struggling to teach French are alternated. I also particularly liked the scene where Rimbaud, sleeping at Ernest Cabaner's (Matt Gibson) place is woken up by Verlaine who himself has nowhere else to go. Matt Gibson here manages to make the most nuanced performance in the whole play, where his irony and tenderness towards both poets is intermingled with the awkwardness of his position between them.

And, last but not least, the main reason to see and enjoy this show is undoubtedly to see Inigo Howe (Paul Verlaine) and Archie Foster (Arthur Rimbaud) weave their way through their tempestuous relationship. Archie Foster has an astounding integrity to his performance and you never glimpse his own student self beyond his so well-acted Rimbaud, as if they were tightly linked together. He is brave in his rudeness and vulgarity, he is self-confident in his alluring sexuality, but never goes beyond the border of vulgarity, always treading fine grounds of romantic and rebellious love between the two men accurately and masterfully. He also can be both persistent, loving and tender in the most intimate scenes of the play which are acted exquisitely by both actors. While Foster excels in being true to Rimbaud's rebelliousness, freedom and sexual allure, a lanky Inigo Howe makes a more complicated and nuanced character out of his Paul Verlaine. Howe's physical build and age does not resemble that of real Verlaine in the slightest, so the viewer ends up visualizing a new – young, romantic, driven by guilt and passion, Paul Verlaine. Howe has a wider range of emotions to portray than Foster, and this variety, as well as his temperament in intimate scenes with his lover (especially the final scene) is really impressive. He might show less integrity than Foster sometimes, with his conscious decisions about the portrayal of Verlaine sometimes to be seen on his face beyond the acted emotions of his character, but one can't expect professional acting in a student show, and Howe makes up for it with the power and sincerity of his stage presence. The youthfulness of both adds a particular atmosphere to the play which ceases to be a play about an older and a younger character but rather becomes a portrayal of a relationship of two young romantics who have to cope with the real world. The show is one of the rare student productions I came to see twice (to contemplate the play's structure and enjoy the acting), and I do hope you have not missed it either.