There’s something innately intriguing about a play that claims to explore sexual politics, male/female power struggles and sadomasochism, especially in this age of Harvey Weinstein and the public revealing of Hollywood’s most depraved sexual abusers.
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is the namesake for the term “sadomasochism” thanks to his 1870 novel, Venus In Fur, in which he uses characters Severin von Kusiemski and Wanda von Dunajew to live out his violent sexual fantasies. It’s widely known that the novel is strongly influenced by von Sacher-Masoch’s own sex life, in which he was dominant over his submissive mistress. He then reportedly forced his first wife, Aurora von Rumelin, to re-enact the book’s sexual activities before she left him and published her own book in which she declared her unhappiness as von Sacherm-Masoch’s wife and sexual slave.
In 2010, David Ives, a New York playwright, took von Sacher-Masoch’s novel and adapted it into a new story – a two-person play-within-a-play, in which a director/playwright called Thomas is trying to cast Wanda and Severin for his own Venus in Fur adaptation.
Thomas is unable to find a suitably desperate and submissive actress to play Wanda, but then a perfectly vulgar woman bursts in on the auditions, Vanda Jordan. The rest of the play centres on Vanda’s audition reading and the switching of dominant and submissive roles between the director and the actress.
Now, for the first time ever in Melbourne, emerging theatre company, Lightening Jar Theatre is recreating David Ives’ sexual exploration of von Sacher-Masoch’s novel at Fortyfivedownstairs, and actress Tilly Legge – set to play Wanda – is keen to let viewers know that the play is far more comedic than sexual, despite its disturbing origins.
“It’s really an exploration of power, gender roles. There’s a lot of really relevant stuff there, especially in regard to Harvey Weinstein and what’s happening at the moment. But it’s a comedy, it’s very funny and light and fun, but it does get quite dark and there’s a real twist,” she says. “People will come out shocked.”
Legge plays alongside Darcy Kent and is directed by Kirsten von Bibra, who has lectured in acting at VCA and has a background in directing contemporary theatre. According to Legge, she, Kent and von Bibra are all acutely aware of the controversial nature of their subject matter.
“We’ve absolutely spoken about this because we want to be really careful about everything we’re putting on stage and everything we’re saying about women and what we’re saying about feminism and we don’t want to portray negative gender stereotyping.
“There’s sexual titillation in there, but to a goal, really for a purpose, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s just a sexy silly comedy but there’s really a lot more going on than that, it goes deeper and it gets quite dark.”
Legge is adamant that those who wish to see the play solely in expectation of a kinky, sex-heavy performance will be sorely disappointed.
“If they come because they think there’s this kink element to it, they’ll be disappointed, it’s not like there’s kinky sex onstage, there’s just really not.”
So there’s no actual sex, but lots of laughs. Legge thinks that comedy is the best way to get under people’s skin.
“I don’t like exclusive theatre that only someone with a PhD can come and see. This play works purely on a comedy level, if you just want a fun night out, you can come and see it, but if you also want something with a bit of depth to it, that’s really saying something more, it also has that. Theatre needs to have heart. ”
