The Sublime. Image: Jeff Busby / MTC
The Sublime
MTC at the Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
Written by Brendan Cowell, directed by Sam Strong, dramaturged by Chris Mead, starring Josh McConville, Ben O’Toole, and Anna Samson
The Sublime is marketed as an “examination of sex, power and footy” and has received great reviews. Cameron Woodhead in SMH says “Cowell takes the risk [of trivializing rape] to probe the aspect of football culture which demeans and objectifies women”. Reuben Liversidge at ArtsHub describes the play as “a bold, ballsy and brave contemporary play about the poisonous misogynistic behaviour of some professional football players”. Chris Boyd at The Australian calls it “as ethically knotty as it is clear-eyed” and claims that “its insights … are extraordinary.” Kate Herbert of the Herald Sun believes that “what is most unsettling, and perhaps most interesting, in this play is the moral ambiguity of the story that makes it difficult to discern who is the real victim.”
This play is about sexual assault against women, a crime that occurs all too frequently and yields some horrifying statistics: 52 Australian women are killed by their partners each year. This play purports to deal with the objectification of women, and sets itself up to start a process of reflection and conversation. Here is a conversation starter: this play re-inscribes the existing culture of objectification and violence against women. This play is part of the problem.
I didn’t go to this play expecting a sensitive or realistic portrayal of women. I knew it was produced, written and directed by men. What I hoped for was insight into the forces that drive violence. The play is at its strongest when illuminating the consequences of team contact sport. The character of Liam challenges the double standard: he is applauded for being violent on the field, then expected not to be violent off it. It’s an insidious mixed message that I believe professional sport is working hard to clarify. But the play isn’t just about physical violence among men. It seeks to engage meaningfully with sexual assault, and I expected that the play would appear to understand what that is. I hoped that at least one male character might show some glimmer of recognition that women are real people, who are their autonomous equals, and that this would be made manifest in the play by accepting responsibility for a sexual assault. Instead, the significance of the assault is all but lost and our lead male character reaches his moment of redemption by physically attacking another male for what he did to his brother.
The female character, Amber, starts off as an enthusiastic, innocent girl who is totally impressed at the footy star. Her ambition to be a runner is forgotten in a haze of booze and willingness to do almost anything to get the footy star to be her boyfriend. After the terrible business with her friend, she proceeds to become first a blackmailer, then a publicity hound, then a glorified prostitute, paid to keep her mouth shut. The silence of the entire football team who also witnessed the assault does not need to be bought and doesn’t even warrant attention. It’s just given. Amber’s concern for justice for her friend evaporates in the face of personal gain. She lies and manipulates. Cameron Woodhead describes the risk the character runs of otherwise being no more than an “abject” victim. Instead, the actual victim conveniently absents herself, presumably out of a deep sense of personal shame, and her friend turns into a manipulative crazy girl whose only apparent path to redemption is through motherhood. By framing the actual crime as something personal and shameful for the absent character Zoe, the play perpetuates a view of rape as private and contestable. This is a play in which one male character gets away with rape, and the other gets away with witnessing it. I would like the MTC to show me a world, with all its contradictions, nuances, difficulties and complexities, where violent crime is something that people do eventually accept responsibility for.
I welcome MTC programming a play about sexual violence in sport. I welcome male writers, directors, dramaturgs and actors grappling seriously with the issue. Dominant groups have to be allowed to delve into the experiences of others without fear. But this requires a willingness to acknowledge structures of inequality, an openness to understanding others’ experience, a willingness to accept responsibility for injustice, and a willingness to accept that maybe you are part of the problem. This play doesn’t examine, unpick, satirise or explore rape culture. It is an expression of it.
There is at least one reviewer who agrees with me. Anne-Marie Peard at AussieTheatre.com ends her very powerful review with a quote from the playwright himself. “It’s [a play] about how a teenage girl with an iPhone can destroy not only a man’s life but entire power structures and industries who are the victims in this play.” He is saying that a rapist’s livelihood is worth more than the autonomy of his victim, and the blame for any negative consequences for him rests quite squarely at the feet of the troublemaker who would dare expose his crime.
Meanwhile the MTC, in the face of a slew of positive reviews, has found it necessary to “respond to criticisms” on the Daily Review by mansplaining to detractors how we shouldn’t “simplify” the plot and get confused about what “condoning” actually means. Instead we are invited to accept the complexity of real life and feel uncomfortable. We are invited to question and debate, as long as we agree with the MTC, and if we don’t then it’s because didn’t actually get what the play is about.
I feel that I got it. I watched a play created by men, for men, that featured a girl in a short skirt on the poster, in which responsibility for sexual assault was never accepted. I invite Brendan Cowell and the MTC to accept responsibility for supporting a culture in which that is defensible.
