What Gets You Off? — HOT 'N' THROBBING at UHM

Late Night theatre at UHM has certainly taken a turn for the touchier topics: namely, sex and violence. While the first offering of the season, Stop Kiss, focused on a female/female relationship, Hot ‘N’ Throbbing—which opened last night—explores S&M in a family setting. The play, by Paula Vogel, asks what the difference is between pornography and erotica. Between a woman’s version of sex as entertainment and a man’s. And, where does fantasy end and reality begin? How does one influence the other? Which is in control? The writer, the director, the man, the woman, the body, the mind…?

Get ready to meet some twisted individuals. Not that the members of this highly dysfunctional family don’t have their tender sides—Mom sleeps on the couch so the teenage brother and sister don’t have to share a room (which is a good thing, because if they did, they’d probably be fucking). Oh, if you didn’t like my use of the F-word just then, you probably shouldn’t go see this show. Because in this show, words aren’t just words. Words are action.

The gist is like this: Dad and Mom split because Dad liked to get drunk and beat on Mom. Mom writes “erotica” to put food on the table. On one fateful night, the life of this family becomes entangled in sexual fantasies. The story is told on the one level through the characters in the family: Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, and on another, literally higher level, through two “voices” in the shape of a man and woman. The “voice” characters represent different elements of the inner and outer worlds of the play at different times.

Let’s start with these voices. D’neka Patten plays the female whip-yielding S&M character/inner voice of Charlene (Mom). Michael Hardy takes on the male voices: the inner thoughts of Clyde (Dad); a Freud-like narrator; and different roles within the “sex” show. All of their acting takes place on a small stage behind the “living room” of the family’s home. It starts off pretty apparent that these voices/actors represent the script that Charlene is writing, and that they are saying and doing what she “tells” them to say and do—Charlene is in control. Patten says what Charlene writes, stops when she stops, waits, sometimes looking anticipatory, sometimes bored. But as the household family drama builds, so the lens flips, and the characters/voices on stage become the audience, a very interested audience. Patten narrates what’s happening in the house instead of what’s happening in the erotic film script that has been left for later. Eventually, it’s no longer clear who’s in control of whom. Patten’s shifts are sometimes abrupt, sometimes subtle, while all the while expressing a consistent human quality. Her “character” has a heart. Hardy’s different egos are harder to delineate and relate to. He’s really more of a voice.

The plot of Hot ‘N’ Throbbing functions as a horror story utilized to demonstrate the ultimate inevitability of sexual violence in the mind, on the page, on the screen resulting in real-life sexual violence. So what about on the stage? Does this play constitute pornography? Will it result in sexual violence? Maybe. But the play is disturbing. I don’t think anyone in the theater was turned on. The sex and violence isn’t glamorized and polished, not by the end.

Sharon Garcia Doyle plays Charlene. It’s implied that her character was once more actively sexual, and now puts that energy into her writing. Clyde (Chris McGahan), her restraining-order-breaking ex, says, “You taught me about desire.” While some of what happens when Clyde shows up is borderline absurd, the evidence of a once-loving (though probably always screwed up) relationship comes through. Doyle and McGahan bring tenderness and hope to the broken relationship, which only makes the final result all the more…successful? at conveying the play’s message.

The teenage children are integral to all of this, though they aren’t continually present. The daughter Leslie Ann, played by Josephine Calvo, and the son Calvin, played by Alex Munro, have issues. Their levels of sexual depravity surpass that of the average hormonal teen. Their fantasies are revealed in different ways, simulated and confessed. Calvo’s Lela, as she prefers to be called, should be a frightening sight for all parents, especially fathers. Her portrayal of a sexually obsessed teen with masochistic fantasies is disturbingly believable. Munro also delivers, eliciting sympathy despite his pervish creepiness.

Director Troy M. Apostol has made some graphic choices. This is adult theatre. In the end, there’s definitely a message, though it will be up to the individual to decide, should one take the time to reflect on what they have seen, exactly what that message is and how strongly it comes through. Some of what’s happening and being said gets lost in the space and the noise. I think the set and staging could have been closer, more intimate, more claustrophobic, as these characters are suffocating in the sickness of their family and their minds. I would have “liked” to be implicated more, as a viewer/voyeur, maybe by the voice characters. Maybe, just maybe, the audience gets off too easy, and they won’t bother to go deeper into the complexities of this play. It’s a topic worth thinking about. It’s a play worth seeing.

For more information see the Facebook event page or the Kennedy Theatre website. The play runs only this weekend and next.