A play written by
Canadian Playwright Linor David about a woman who
has lost her ability to
orgasm. The main (and only) character spends the play
talking to an imagined
Anais Nin - who's writings she had adored (and
masturbated to in the past), and whom she adored for her
sexual
liberty.
An interesting question asked within: "What is it like to have sex with your father (an
act referred to in Anais' writings); can it ever be
consensual?" David - through the character believes that it isn't in fact possible to have consensual
sex with your father.
This play is quite challenging both for the audience, and I would imagine the actor:
The action transcends normal rules of
propriety in that: the actor is
masturbating in
vain on stage, which is usually reserved for that private time between yourself and
your imagination; so too with the plight of the audience, they are thrust into the
bedroom of a woman struggling to find release. The action was both enthralling and
off-putting, I found myself wanting to watch, but also feeling that societal stigma
telling me to avert my eyes.
On the topic of release, the sub-plot involves the parallel retention of constipation.
Much
Metamucil is drank in the opening scene, with the implication that this has
been core to her diet.
Being set around a night in the life of an Anais fan, the story is rife with eroticism. In
one scene we find our character role-playing a boy trying to make lust with his date:
safe at
first base cupping the "breast" outside the shirt; moving on to
second with little pause, under the shirt, over the bra; struggling with the bra
clasp; and finally
skin! It is surprising that the actor didn't
chip a tooth on the chair-cum-lover that night.
Those sympathetic souls in the audience are eventually
released as our
protagonist does eventually come.
to orgasm - followed quickly by her bolting to the washroom to find other
release
Note: You will see masturbation in this play,
you are now warned.
References to the specific production are that of the Peterborough run
starring Rachel Matlow