Two men in an attic play with power. ‘A’ (Jonny Woo) is the dom – a sex worker with an edge. ‘B’ (Alexis Gregory) – the sub, craves a real homophobic violent murder experience, based on real crimes.
Alexis Gregory’s darkly comic script touches upon the fine line between pain and pleasure. The use of unsettling, clipping language with a harsh poetic edge sticks in the mind, as ‘B’ idolises gruesome murder scenes that they recreate for thrills: ‘festering’, ‘stagnant’, ‘rotting’. It’s clear that this is a space where troubled men come to escape from their emotional turmoil by inflicting physical pain.
However, what should be an interesting angle on a topical subject fails to come through. Woo plays a strong, domineering character, taking control of the piece, but Gregory comes across as a melo-dramatic, camp stereotype. This dynamic proves distracting, making their connection (or lack thereof) not particularly believable. For this reason, some lines feel forced and fail to land.
Mike Robertson’s lighting design teamed with Rocco Venna’s sinister plastic sheeting set helps create the progressively eery vibe, which unfortunately isn’t mirrored in the acting. Woo has a few funny gags, at one point taking a break after six hours of torture to ‘make use of EU regulations while we still have them’ – met with knowing laughter. But, it’s not quite enough to save the piece.
Sex/Crime has the potential to hit some interesting points and achieve more laughs, but unfortunately the delivery fails to hit the mark.
Tess Kennedy
Tess Kennedy moved to London to be closer to her first love: theatre. It’s just a coincidence that she’s also now much closer to her second love, Idris Elba. During the week, Tess is a Social Media Manager, but in her spare time she enjoys reading, singing, yoga, pina coladas — although she can take or leave getting caught in the rain. Tess has been writing for Upper Circle since January 2019, where she’s seen more Fringe than Jonathan Van Ness, as well as plenty of one-woman-shows and musicals. Although she’s a big fan of the musical genre, Tess draws the line at Cats. That’s not because she’s a dog person though – Tess loves her family cats more than most humans – it’s because the visual of Idris Elba meowing in a skintight leotard gave her paws for thought.
Jonny Woo’s star turn as “A” was such a delight. Woo has done little straight theatre of late but the skill he handled and finessed the dialogue with was really commendable. Layered nuanced restrained and wonderfully done.
The writing of “B”s character and its delivery left something to be desired.
Though it seems evident at first glance ‘B’ was fusing the arguable depiction of a queer underworld from “Cruising” with 70s sitcom camp, things never moved much further. The character seemed to be a commentary on dysfunctional communication within communities, the role drugs play in suspending engagement with reality and those who navigate their 30-40ies in this manner, but was overblown and overstated. It’s one thing to portray a character who embodies elements of caricature and emotional dissociation, but it’s another when two hours in the theatre gives no more nuance from a character than that. The character never moved beyond the affected delivery of the lines and what could have given way to depth and tenderness felt like a self-indulgent exercise in performance time.
When so few London venues offer clear precedence to queer theatre in the way Soho Theatre did, surely audiences deserve more nuanced interpretations of LGBT stories and the texts which depict them.
Credit is due to the creative team who transformed the Soho Theatre into the oppressively ominous grungy space the play was performed in – it was electrifying.