A Big Load of Sex

Once upon a time, it was easy to review theatre. Start off with a quick plot synopsis, hand out praise and demerits to the various parts of the company, tag on a quick personal opinion and give it three non-committal stars.

Then post-modernism came along and started asking awkward questions about the nature of objectivity. The grand vision of Aeschylus, in which the very universe had a moral centre, was replaced by competing narratives, none of which could be called definitive. Even news journalism is challenged by the application of analysis that detects personal bias.

Plays started to get trickier. The classic creative process – a script, a director, a group of actors being told what to do and say – dissolved into a series of alternative strategies. This evolution opened up the stage to companies like Mammalian Diving Reflex, who are interested in using non-professional performers, devise a script in collaboration with them, and present an event that is about community as much as aesthetic display.

And so, All The Sex I Have Ever Had. Five people on stage reveal their life histories, with the emphasis on sexual interactions. Having signed a declaration not to “gossip” about the information relayed, it’s not right to say which character was promiscuous, or divorced, or even if any of them were. If I were not already hobbled by the self-doubt precipitated by age and a recognition of my own inevitable subjectivity, this contract cuts away much of the descriptive function of this review.

Fortunately, this reduces the task to a simple critique of the format (five speakers reading from a script, reducing their complex lives to the quality of a series of Facebook updates) and the apparent intention. Since the advertising made it clear that Sex concerned old people chatting about nookie, it’s probably something to do with making sex a legitimate topic for discussion, and undermining the prejudice that seniors are an alien race who didn’t ever have sex except for procreation, like your momma.

I was moved, in a vague and uncomfortable manner. That’s too easy: five strangers revealing their life story – unless it happens in a bar, then it’s irritating. I was annoyed, charming, never disgusted (there was generally a lack of detail on the sex acts, but it’s unlikely I can ever be shocked now that I have the Internet). Some of the characters offered dubious justifications for their antics. The most disturbing aspect was the way that the incidents were recounted. There was little emotional depth, sexual partners came and went. None of the characters were asked to assess their experiences, except in a rather wistful epilogue.

In the current social context, in which privacy is being replaced by shallow disclosure on-line, Sex, feels like the perfect play for the Facebook age.

A chain of sexual encounters, episodic, catalogued by year, notches on bedposts or amusing anecdotes: it reflects a commodification of experience, served up as something between entertainment and education. The audience is left to draw conclusions. The tone, like a therapy session, is non-judgmental.  

At this point, it is appropriate to commend the bravery of the performers and the skill of the team who helped them to remember and catalogue their lives. The show concludes, leaving questions about the way that lives are shaped by events, that personality is the product of opportunity and experience.

Then, it’s worth observing that, given the nature of The Arches’ audience, this performance had non-performers performing to an audience of performers. There’s a little irony, and perhaps a subtle inversion of the usual theatrical dynamic.

It’s all very emotional. It isn’t profound. Finding out that seniors had sex isn’t a revelation. The dry tone of the confessions refuses to connect the events into a personal history, or encourage any connection between the performers. Perhaps representing sexuality in a format other than the erotic or pornographic is enough.

Trying to fit a work like this into any sort of theatrical tradition is a challenge – it has roots in community theatre, amateur dramatics, devised performance, they do read from a script and Rob Jones did a fine job as a DJ-MC hybrid, hinting at cabaret. But the usual parameters – good acting, fine direction that interprets the script – are deliberately avoided. And if a work is trying to open up discussion, making the audience sign a non-disclosure agreement undermines the process.

I just kind of stop….