The director’s chosen method of building all three instalments of Table Talk is based upon the pairing of actors with writers to whom they tell a story from their personal experiences in response to the concept and the writers crafts their stories into theatrical pieces. In rehearsal, the different pieces are woven into a cohesive performance in which, as the director, Paul Gilchrist, describes it, “one tale speaks to another”. The method is addictive for a modern audience as it offers a range of heart-felt perspectives, and in this particular instalment, the offerings are made with with great candour.
Those words, by the way, do get an airing but in a very engaging and challenging way. In the opening sequence Paul (Paul Armstrong, performer; Con Nats, writer) shows how such language can be used as a means of depersonalising contact, expressing only a physical need. Shauntelle (Shauntelle Benjamin; Donna Abela) uses similar language in her satirical acting out of particularly unpleasant but to the women spectators, readily recognised, scenarios of blind male arrogance. Erica (Erica J. Brennan; Mark Langham) takes an entirely different approach focussing audience attention on the derivational history of a well-known word of abuse, and while very funny, she prompts us to question the underlying misogyny of such use despite the currently termed “reclamation” of such words. In a lively and witty reversal of plain talking, Eleanor (Eleanor Stankiewicz; Katie Pollock) uses a sustained political analogy to express her preferences.
The multiplicity and complexity of human sexuality is well represented. The initially rather melancholy perception of Erica’s belief that she has been judged as sexually unworthy passes through anger, to rebellion, to very funny mockery of sex as “fun” and of romance, “the idiot sister to sex”, to apparent self-belief. A rather dazed Paul struggles to navigate his way through the variations on sexual partnership that make modern relationships more hazardous to find satisfaction in the assumption of responsibility. Shauntelle, whose story is perhaps the more tempting to a modern audience as it deals with currently fashionable “grey areas”, is performed with a bright-eyed vigour and eventually self-conviction that dodges the psychological issues. It is in keeping with the honesty of the stories that the resolutions never seem quite as convincing to the audience as they are to the performers, a sense beautifully conveyed by Richard (Richard Cornally; Sarah Carradine). There are questions still, as there should be, since our personal fulfilment may be partly imaginary, a self-creation like Edric’s (Edric Hong; Melissa Lee Speyer) flower or butterfly.
The highlight of the performance is Jennie’s story (Jennie Dibley; Margaret Davies), the one story to make us experience the mystery of elective affinity and ponder on destiny. Her tale begins in the more repressive regime of the early 1960s when an adolescent girl’s passion was kept in check by the frightening prospect of pregnancy. Beginning with an unusual scenario in which two dating high-school girls are exchanged by their adolescent boyfriends to the satisfaction of Jenny, who scores the most popular boy, and with whom she seems to be a perfect match, as she is the only girl member of his band. Jenny recalls the frisson as her hand touched his wrist with a wistful, enchanting intensity. He, however, is not for her, and some painful experiences follow, about which she tells us in a fond, bemused tone, forgiving of herself, the boy, her sister, her once best friend. It is in the past, that other country. However, when Jenny meets the man decades later, to her wonderment she re-experiences the same frisson at a chance touching of her hand and his wrist. We contemplate the mystery of it and hope that no one is going to put it down to “just chemistry”.
And Now to Bed is deeply engaging, ranging from funny to poignant to confronting by turn, the different perspectives offered of human sexuality skilfully woven into a revelatory and ultimately reverential whole. Economically and professionally presented (Tom Massy, stage management; Ashley Walker, sound design) once again the Subtlenuance team has delivered a compelling piece of theatre.
