Men's Business
Lauren Farrell and Rex Ryan in Men's Business. Image by Wen Driftwood
***
A Simon Stephens world premiere is a major theatrical event. But it would be a stretch to call Men’s Business a Simon Stephen’s play. An adaptation of Franz Xaver Kroetz’s 1972 play, Mannersache, Stephen’s homage to the German playwright is clearly a labour of love. Yet it can be difficult to know what fish Stephens is hoping to fry with Kroetz's damaged, expressionist characters, who both look out of place in their reimagined modern setting. Politically, Kroetz’s study of class sees a bourgeoise, female butcher and her bit of rough, working class welder play out their dominant-submissive relationship to a mutually assured destruction. The play’s exploration of power, sex and relationships following the same format. The charmless Victor, a retarded beta male with alpha male delusions, gets off inflicting pain and humiliation on a compliant Charlie who’s looking for connection. Both characters essentially distinctions without a difference. Each ready to use, do, or sacrifice anyone to get what they want. But it all looks dated in a late Capitalist, kink comfortable 21st century where greater sexual awareness and online porn has replaced girly mags and naivety. And where the bourgeoise look to be as politically screwed as the working class.
If Stephens emphasises sex and power, what emerges is less Last Tango in Paris so much as Last Dance in a Kilmuckridge Abattoir. Andrew Clancy’s clinical set as much an expressionist symbol as a physical space. In which loveless, empty sex scenes, under intimacy coach Marty Breen, are bravely, if one-sidedly rendered. Indeed, seeing a topless woman onstage risking greater vulnerability, especially when the scene didn’t need it, while the man never undertakes a similar risk raises interesting questions about performance power dynamics. Lauren Farrell’s detailed and delicate Charlie already laced with affecting vulnerability which stripping off adds little too. Charlie’s near expressionless expressions, her hard edged nuance, her slip sliding into despair all terrifically rendered in Farrell's beautifully etched and incredibly brave performance. Against which Rex Ryan’s menacing, loud mouth misogynist plays like a cartoon villain, and plays out to the audience a tad too much. Charlie filling out the play’s recurring silences with flesh and blood. Victor’s power play aggression charging the silence till it crackles. The dog, Wolfie, Victor’s imagined rival, stealing hearts and minds.
Lauren Farrell and Rex Ryan in Men's Business. Image by Wen Driftwood
If director Ross Gaynor deftly manages to tap into the play’s dark humour, scenes set-up proves less successful. A weak, and unnecessary music intro reeks wannabe movie whilst looking desperate to inject some punkish energy. Instead, it just delays the action, looks contrived and slows things down. Endless costume changes and sluggish transitions further hamper pace. Violence, when it lands, is again cartoonish. But Men’s Business is nothing if not an absurdly humorous rabbit hole, albeit not a very deep one. Something Gaynor sensitively negotiates for the most part.
While there is everything to admire here, not everyone is going to like Men’s Business. It isn’t Stephens’s best work. One suspects it isn’t Kroetz’s best work. Victor’s patriarch masculinity soon becoming a one trick pony that runs out of road. Playing into predictable male tropes till Charlie’s compliance begins to defy belief. Thankfully, Farrell’s sinuous performance makes the incredible credible and deeply affecting. Ensuring that though the play’s politics, be they relational, social or sexual, feel dated, Men’s Business crackles with undercurrents that strike theatrical gold. Even as it risks resembling a dirty old man’s sexual fantasy of domination and abuse. Glass Mask once again pushing at boundaries, premiering another new work by one our European counterparts.
Men’s Business by Franz Xaver Kroetz, translated by Simon Stephens, runs at Glass Mask Theatre until March 1.
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