A prostitute with fucking tuberculosis!
‘It’s not Hamlet…’ Well, no. But then, I wasn’t after Hamlet. (That quote, by the way, coming from the mother of Polis, the writer and director.)
What it is is dark, very dark, but also beautiful. Watching the power play between the two characters is fantastic, and really quite gripping. Polis writes a captivating two-hander, with Jaacq Hugo’s strong, icy woman is played perfectly, and contrasts nicely with Laura Baker’s more manic, bullish husband.
The genderbending is slightly distracting for a while – Jaacq’s toned, hairy legs (and lovely bum) don’t scream femininity, but something in the way he uses them does – after a while you almost forget that he’s playing a woman opposite a girl (with, I’m sure, equally lovely boobs) playing a man – and the beautifully-portrayed characters shine through, flaws and all.
It’s also not something you expect in the upstairs of a very manly, no-nonsense pub which has Sky Sports on over the snooker table and a barman who doesn’t so much talk as grunt (he may have been Northern Irish, or he may simply have had a stroke – I didn’t like to pry).
The set is minimal, the lighting similarly so, and the use of video is much less than in their last production, Clothes To Fall Apart In, but it works, almost as if there’s less between the audience and the characters being portrayed. I get the feeling that were this performed with a full, realistic set, intricate lighting and/or a more involved use of video, it would be trying too hard, and would manage to somehow detract from the purity of the acting. The comic elements are much more subtle and downplayed compared to last time, too, but then this isn’t a particularly funny story.
It lasts around an hour, which, considering the pacing, could perhaps do with being closer to 80 or 90 minutes, just to allow the conversations to flow more easily, “We’re still honing it,” admits Jaacq, as we catch up with him for an after-show drink in the man-bar, “we’ll probably never be done playing with it, trying something a little different here and there…” Which, to me, shows a commendable level of introspection and willingness to experiment; It’s fine to rehearse, have it down pat and deliver the same performance night after night, but to be continually working on a piece as the performances come and go is, I think, much closer to the idea of true, living theatre.
But then, I’m not a theatre critic. Go, watch it. Take your friends, discuss it in the bar afterwards and then write your own review in the comments below. (And look out for the oddest English accent since Dick van Dyke played a loveable cockney chimneysweep.)
The Sexes runs al this week, ending with a Matinee on Sunday. More details can be found on the facebook event page, and tickets are available from ticketweb.
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