Review: Good Sex at The Everyman
Good Sex, it turns out, is much like the act itself: funny, frustrating, experimental, and a little flat at times.
As anyone who has ever been to a live sex show can testify, watching two people going at it on a stage in front of you is actually quite boring. But still, sex always sells doesn’t it? Because regardless of what our daily lives might entail, we are first and foremost sexual beings, and as a result have an insatiable interest in both our own, and more curiously, other people’s sex lives.
Well aware of this point, Dead Centre Theatre company have added their own unique twist to the long tradition of sexcentric work, with their latest production Good Sex currently running in The Everyman Theatre as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival.
While the premise of this production is quite simple, its execution is anything but, as two actors find themselves on stage in front of a live audience to perform a play without ever having read the script. Instead they are fed their lines through an earpiece by two other actors stationed in a see-through box at the back of the stage. Also accompanying them is an intimacy director, who will guide the pair through proceedings like some sort of a sexual sherpa, in the hope that they might have, you guessed it, good sex.
For the opening performance in Cork it was the turn of Jamie Beamish and Rebecca O’ Mara to play the lead roles and understandably both actors took to the stage somewhat nervously. They were however, not given too much time to think about things as they were immediately thrown straight into the action and their interlinked story is revealed as a familiar one; that of two old flames who are still attracted to one another.
Liv O’Donoghue playing the intimacy director between the two ex-lovers, steps in and out of scenes, showing both Beamish and O’Mara how to touch each other, how to kiss and how movement and gesture carry different meanings when on stage, as opposed to in real life. All stuff they are no doubt fully aware of already as professional actors, but perhaps instructive to the audience.
Things are then ramped up a notch when some booze is thrown into the mix and the two ex-lovers find themselves alone late at night. O’Donoghue’s character eggs them on and even enters the fray as another drunken character, while also cajoling the audience to participate in the action too.
Fair play to Beamish and O’Mara and all the other actors taking on these parts. It must be nerve wracking not having a script to fall back on, but they both acquitted themselves really well and the acting was of a very high standard. O’Donoghue is also excellent as the safety first intimacy director, conducting the unfolding drama from centre stage and the sidelines with great gusto.
But while there are many layers to Good Sex, ultimately it is a play about the making of a play and in that regard it is certainly very well put together. A lot of the humour however is derived from what is essentially a series of rehearsals carried out live on stage. This is all well and good, but some of the jokes are quite juvenile and not a million miles away from the kind of caper you’d see in an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys.
The audience however lapped it up, which was no great surprise because this was a play which marketed itself so well that it drew in a large crowd perhaps curious to see what good sex might look like and eager for a bit of light hearted fun.
On the latter level, the play certainly delivers, but for those looking for a little more substance, they might leave a little frustrated. Because when you strip back all the bells and whistles of actors not knowing anything about the script, the set being built around them mid performance, breaking the fourth wall etc. what you are left with is a rather average drama.
Good Sex then turns out to be a bit like the real thing itself; something to look forward to perhaps, but unless you were taking part yourself, not all that memorable.
Good Sex runs in The Everyman Theatre until June 23 and tickets can be found here