Image supplied by Brisbane Powerhouse.
Sex With Strangers is a play you can see with your parents. While stars Veronica Neave and Thomas Larkin glance suggestively at each other on the program, the show’s no more racy than any given episode of House Husbands playing in the family living room on a Sunday night. Playwright Laura Eason’s take on where love and ambition intersect sees two writers, from different generations with different expectations of the world, sharing the same needs – emotionally, physically and professionally. And isn’t a writer writing about writers’ writing a hell of a lot more dangerous than writing about sex anyway?
In Sex With Strangers, Thomas Larkin, the most shirtless man in Brisbane theatre, plays Ethan, a ‘memoirist’ and blogger in the vein of Tucker Max – writing and speaking brutally about his conquests and getting paid handsomely for it. At a humble ‘bed and breakfast’ in Michigan, he finds Olivia (Veronica Neave), a slightly anxious teacher, with one small, obscure novel under her belt. There is an age gap between the pair – more May-August than May-December – but most notably, Olivia is an entirely different writer. Her laptop is older, she is scared of the iPad and she’s all-but-disconnected from the online realm that Ethan has grown up in – rejecting the idea that ‘serious’ writers have a social media presence at all (quick, someone tell @MargaretAtwood). Still, with no Wi-Fi and no immediate plans, they’re quick to begin a passionate affair.
Larkin and director Jennifer Flowers are to be commended for transferring a much-hyped US play to the local stage, outside of a major theatre company and even ahead of the opening of a major Off-Broadway production. Still, if it was intended be a star vehicle for Larkin, it falls a little short. Larkin has an easy charm and makes for a convincing Ethan, but Eason’s play fails to grant his character the same evolution Olivia enjoys. Neave is the focal point in the second act, appearing all the more comfortable as her character develops. Minor flaws like the occasional accent-slip or ‘over-gesturing’ shouldn’t matter, but as an audience, when you already have to overcome the hurdle of neither character being particularly likeable or interesting, the little things stack-up and pull focus. Eason has most recently been working as a staff writer on acclaimed US drama House Of Cards – if only this play gifted its characters the same sharp dialogue.
Troy Armstrong has delivered an easily-transformed set, which teams well with a moody lighting design by Jason Glenwright and Tim Gawne. Still, none of the design details rescue the awkwardness of how the ‘sex’ is staged and it is hugely important these brief moments work as they punctuate almost every scene of the first act. Thumping house music (adult-contemporary when it’s more ‘romantic’, if you don’t mind) places these intensely-choreographed scenes in sketch comedy territory. When eroticism is a goal, or at the very least, a selling point, it’s rarely successful. Venus in Fur/s this isn’t.
Sex With Strangers has been playing to impressive audiences at the Visy, flocking in from the cold for the promise of something polished, intimate, adult. With a hugely respected director at the helm and two of Brisbane’s favourite performers at its heart, Sex With Strangers feels like it has something clever to say about creativity versus ambition, about ‘selling out’, about modern relationships, but it’s ultimately hindered by shoddy dialogue and worse sex.
Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars
Sex With Strangers
By Laura Eason
Directed by Jennifer Flowers
Cast: Thomas Larkin and Veronica Neave
Lighting Design: Jason Glenwright and Tim Gawne
Designer: Troy Armstrong
Composer/Sound Designer: Dane Alexander
Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
17 – 26 July
