“Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes is an engaging night at the theatre and a relatively safe way of looking at what could be a tricky topic in a post #metoo climate.”
“Director Petra Kalive has directed a very well made chamber piece and an enjoyable night at the theatre “
Fiona Hallenan-Barker
3.5 /5 Mortar Boards
performative
adjective
relating to the performance of behaviours associated with a particular social role or
identity.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a play, set in a room, about a student and a lecturer, must be in want of a sexual liaison. Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes is a modernised version this well-known story and aims to flip the paradigm.
Jon is a famous writer of erotic fiction and university lecturer, Annie is a young university student and super fan of his writing who happens to live across the street, you can imagine what happens next. Writer Hannah Moscovitch uses the lecturer as storyteller trope to describe as much as we see in this tightly woven duet. Moscovitch’s success lies in her understanding of the grey area between people, and how language can be a limitation to expressing feelings or events. On of the most powerful moment in the play happens in a public bar where the female character of Annie cannot find the words to express what she means.
Lecturer Jon is played by Dan Spielman who is both charming and daggy and manages with his skills and talent to bring the dialogue to life. Izabella Yena brings a bright eyed and bushy tailed quality to Annie that is warm and engaging throughout. Both actors are immensely likeable even though their characters are not. The frisson between Jon and Annie is a credit to both actors and the work of the intimacy
coordinator Michaela Banas and movement consultant Xanthe Beesley whose work is precise and evocative.
The encounters are described by Jon in the third person while we see snippets of action play out in the small square of lawn and lecture theatre at the front of the stage. Marg Horwell, Rachel Burke and Darius Kedros have designed a world that is both familiar yet full of awkward angles and discomfort, a well thought through reflection of the characters on stage. There are moments of great humour in the play but the space provided by the twist at the end (no spoilers) actually distances us from caring about the characters. The power imbalance is clear from the start and there are no clear winners or losers.
Director Petra Kalive has directed a very well made chamber piece and an enjoyable night at the theatre. Creating theatre in a post covid landscape is an enormously difficult endeavour, let alone touring a production. Here’s hoping that the health and wellbeing benefits of attending the theatre are recognised by funding bodies so that we can see many more works from all over Australia.
Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes is an engaging night at the theatre and a relatively safe way of looking at what could be a tricky topic in a post #metoo climate. Women are now acutely aware that every single one of us has had to deal with an unwanted or socially inappropriate sexual advance of one kind or another and this frames our understanding of the language, mechanisms and institutions around us.
If you liked Van Badham’s The Bull, The Moon & The Coronet of Stars or didn’t like David Mamet’s Oleanna then this one is for you. Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes is not a fire fuelled rage against the inequities of power and gender within institutions and society but it is an enjoyable night out at the theatre. You will definitely have something to talk about afterwards, no matter who you take as a date.
Fiona Hallenan-Barker, Theatre Now
Belvoir Upstairs
2 Jun – 10 JUL 2022
