A combination of Rom-Com, cultural satire, and apocalyptic thriller, this is a truly wild ride full of spectacle, disturbing sound effects, ideas and a couple of surprising visuals, played by a game-for-anything cast of 4.
David Finnigan's recent work has shown this skill in abundance - between "Kill Climate Deniers", "Scenes from the Climate Era", "You're Safe til 2024" and this, he's been providing lively, intriguing examinations of modern predicaments for a while now. This is possibly the flashiest of them (even outflashying "Kill Climate Deniers" combination of Action Movie and cultural lecture), using Steve Toulmin's pulsing sound design as a backdrop moving us from high-level influencers to grotty loft apartment with live sound effects played by the cast on everything from a guess-who rack to an ironing board.
The plot has a minor issue that ties into an unfortunate trend in modern Rom Coms - it doesn't seem to spend much time making either lead particularly likeable, meaning we don't really care very much if they get together or not. The 44 Sex Acts of the title relate to a self-help-guru's evangelical statement about the liberating power of uninhibited sex (Rebecca Massey gives this guru everything she's got, moving sleekly around the stage rousing the audience with her passion). A journalist, Celina, on a click-bait women's issue blog (Amber McMahon, full of realistic frustration and rage) agrees to re-enact those acts and review them for the blog in exchange for money that will allow her to upgrade her living situation. Helping her out, reluctantly, is part-time-office-boy, part-time-environmental-warrior Alab (Aaron Tsindos, similarly frustrated but impassioned), who is inspired by the acts to undertake his own big-scale action. Helping them out is Celina's frined Remely and Alab's friend Kalil (both played by Nancy Denis with enthusiasm, even down to the point where both of these characters are involved in an all-in-inflatable-pool-orgy). All played out with clothes on and with the assistance of various objects of fruit (what the cast does with a banana and a rockmelon is truly thrilling).
If Finnigan's biting off slightly more than he can comfortably chew (the ending when it comes feels like a hastily imposed moral reckoning on an otherwise hedonistically enjoyable evening), Sheridan Harbridge's direction stretches out to cover every mode of the play from the serious ideas hiding behind everything to the joyous nonsense around the rest of it, and holds the 75-odd minutes together well.
No comments:
Post a Comment