One of the joys of contemporary playwriting is its openness to flexible casting. In Ruby Thomas’s 2019 play Either, for example, there are two lovers — denoted as A and B — whose story is performed in different variations by actors of different genders, different sexualities, different ethnicities. The result is a neat way of exploring traditional ideas about gender roles — and challenging preconceptions. A similar method is used by Nikoletta Soumelidis in Spent, which was a big hit at the Voila! Theatre Festival, at the Barons Court Theatre, and now has a well-deserved run at Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington.
Beginning with a kind of meet cute, which involves a pressure cooker malfunction, this 90-minute two-hander is also a story about A and B. The play is written to be performed by actors swapping roles, an explicit questioning of gender norms. On the evening I saw it, A is a man who comes from a posh background, but has Daddy issues. He works as an executive in an office, with boorish colleagues who force him to spend time buttering up clients. At one point, he has the chance of working in Japan for six months. In the couple’s sex games, his role is submissive.
By contrast, B is a struggling Mancunian artist with Mummy issues. As poor as he is rich. She had leukaemia as a child, and is haunted by memories of other children dying in the hospital ward, and continues to have severe health issues. Estranged from her family, she has suicidal thoughts and is more open than A to sexual experimentation and drug abuse. In the couple’s sex games, she is openly dom, the experienced guide that says, “Pleasure and pain do go hand-in-hand.” The one who stresses that gentleness not force can open up our thoughts. The free spirit — or is she?
After a quick chat about Romeo and Juliet, in which B criticizes the notion of possessiveness, these star-cross’d lovers start to live together. As with many couples, tensions soon arise: he spends too much time at work, she is jealous about his life outside the home. Although she finds it hard to say “I love you”, he thinks she is too much like hard work. At one point she discovers that he misses his ex-girlfriend, who was less intense. At another, she reads his text messages — with predictable results. Amid jokes about bondage gear, and dragon dildoes, there are acute moments such as a failed Valentine dinner, and fraught discussions about who gets what out of the relationship.
The couple’s exploration of BDSM is a metaphor for the power balance in any intimate affair. Seeing A played by a man is interesting because of his sexual submissiveness, which is balanced by his unwillingness to express his true feelings. The idea that trust is central to any erotic experimentation likewise emphasizes its role in this couple’s lives. Being played by a woman, B’s distress at A’s betrayal of her is the counterpart to his discomfort in completely committing to the relationship. Here romance begins in a loving attraction, but soon turns into possession, insecurity and narcissism. In short, the classic bad romance.
Soumelidis’s playwriting is confident and the dialogues are convincingly familiar, but the non-linear elements of the narrative could be made a bit clearer. Things move so fast that you feel a bit left behind if you miss a detail or two. But the overall effect is a perceptive analysis of the human heart in our age of sexual freedom and digital temptations. Despite this contemporary setting, Spent suggests that traditional feelings of loving tenderness, committed patience and constant honesty are the most important virtues. Trust, it seems, has to be earned, and earned again. Otherwise, love so often just tears us apart, again and again and again.
Flipping the genders of A and B — and perhaps having a same-sex version — underlines the themes of power, control and abuse of trust. On the night I saw the play, A was played by Charlie Collinson and B by Soumelidis, as sharply directed by Helen Cunningham, for 28&2 Productions, with help from movement director Lauren Lucy Cook (good transitions between past and present) and composer Sophie Sparkes (evocatively ambient). Collinson does well at concealing his character’s feelings, and his behaviour comes across as quite toxic (is it exactly the same when A is played by Soumelidis?). By contrast, her interpretation of B is full of sympathy and honesty (is it exactly the same when B is played by Collinson?).
Of course, each actor can vary the way they play each of their two characters depending on the evening, thus exploring different sides to the personalities of these mutable creations. Like any episode of intense love, the play has no real ending, and some of the dialogues show how difficult it is to express oneself without saying the usual things. As a picture of damage it has its merits, and I would like to see these characters explored in greater depth. In a way, this perceptive piece is a challenge to the audience: who do you like better? Who is braver? Who is truer? As such, it shows that power is always the key to understanding any relationship. Great stuff.
- Spent is at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 29 March.
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.
This post was written by Aleks Sierz.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.
