Review by James Wilkinson
‘NSFW’ – Written by Lucy Kirkwood. Directed by Darren Evans. Costume Design: Liz Sheehan. Lighting Design: Emily Bearce. Scenic and Sound Design: Darren Evans. Fight Choreographer: Jess Malone. Presented by Theatre on Fire at the Charlestown Working Theatre through November 17.
The acronym, for those of you who may not know, means ‘Not Safe for Work.’ You’ll find it in email subject lines and online article headlines as a shorthand that the content contains images (usually nudity) you probably don’t want popping up on your work computer where your boss can walk by. It’s meant to spare embarrassment, though it can just as easily act as a beacon for someone on the hunt for salacious material. The acronym also lends itself as the title of British playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s 2012 play, a piece concerned with what happens at the intersection of salacious material and the workplace. It’s an incredibly intelligent and wickedly funny play being given an incredibly intelligent and wickedly funny production by the Charlestown-based company, Theatre on Fire.
The term, “a play of ideas” is one that I usually dread as it more often than not it means you’re in for an evening of watching characters who are more mouth-pieces than flesh and blood human beings arguing abstract ethical or philosophical concepts. It’s the type of thing that’s interesting to read in essay form and dull when put into a dramatic framework. I think the term is apt here, though, and I mean that in the best possible way. This is a play and a production that pulls you in on an intellectual level so that you don’t realize the emotional punch coming at the end. The more you think about the play, the more connections you’re able to make in the material and the more layers you realize were baked in. It’s really incredible how many angles and ideas that Kirkwood is able to pack into the story of the fall out of a single event.
The single event in question is the accidental publication of a certain type of pornographic material. We open on the offices of Doghouse, a fictitious men’s magazine in the vein of Hustler or Penthouse. Yes, the magazine has articles, but that’s not why anyone’s purchasing. The magazine has recently published a very successful issue featuring the winner of a centerfold contest, but editor Aidan (David Anderson) wants more. He encourages his team (Ivy Ryan, Isaiah Plovnick and Padraig Sullivan) to go deeper. To, in his words, “seek out the space between the breasts.” All hell then breaks loose when the team discovers that their new centerfold not only didn’t know that her picture had been submitted to the magazine, but, at the age of fourteen, is also underage.
There’s something deliciously fun about a production that commits to just how unlikable the characters are. Sitting on Aidan’s desk is a small knickknack that reads “I can’t adult today.” It seems particularly apt. Out of a cast of six, there’s perhaps only one character that you’d actually want to spend time with and under Darren Evans’s direction, the cast of NSFW doesn’t sugarcoat the more unpleasant aspects of their characters. Every cruelty, every aggression is mined for the kind of laughs that stick in your throat. The production is all the stronger for it. This is a play about compromise, about the tiny negotiations that we’re all forced to make to exist in modern society. It has to cut that deep in order to mean anything.
In preparation for writing this piece I took a look at some of the reviews of the original production. Critics were quick to tag the play as a satire of the attitudes and hypocrisies running rampant at magazines like Doghouse, but I think that that misses much of Kirkwood’s point. Certainly the play is concerned with how women are portrayed in media, but I think that’s part of a larger critique of a capitalistic system that encourage people to become and be seen as commodities. Take an early scene with the character Sam, played with a bashful earnestness by Padraig Sullivan. The staff at Doghouse have learned that he’s going to be proposing to his girlfriend and encourage him to write about it for the magazine. It’s something he’d rather keep private, but as the team points out, if he’s willing to make this compromise and expose this part of himself, it’ll further his career. Later in the show, he’ll be faced with a similar situation and watching him struggle with the decision is heartbreaking.
Director Darren Evans has infused Theatre on Fire’s production with a good deal of heartbreak to go with its biting humor. It’s an extremely funny piece, but that heartbreak is there, lurking in the background. During a long scene between Aidan and Mr. Bradshaw (the father of the young centerfold), Charlotte (Ivy Ryan) stands off to the side, watching the two men negotiating what comes next. As the scene plays on, the discomfort on Charlotte’s face becomes more noticeable as she realizes just how deep in the mess she really is. Becca A. Lewis gives a gloriously comic performance as Miranda, the editor of a rival women’s magazine, channeling a mix of Jennifer Saunders in Absolutely Fabulous and Tilda Swinton in Trainwreck. I lost track of how many times she applied hand lotion during a twenty minute scene (I’d wager that by the end of the run Lewis’ hands are going to be the softest in the city). There’s something slightly unhinged about the character that makes you laugh, but Lewis is also able to let Miranda’s mask drop for a moment to let us see the emotional toll that playing the game has taken on her.
There’s a quietness as NSFW ends. The audience’s applause dies away and you’re left wanting to sit with what you’ve just seen. To take a moment, digest and sort out your own thoughts. I know so many people who want to fight this sort of response and always want to be walking out of the theater with a giant smile on their face. But in my experience, those are the plays you forget the quickest. It’s the ones that force you inward that stick with you the longest. You’ll be thinking about Theatre on Fire’s production in the days after you see it. Probably the next time you reach for a magazine. For tickets and more information, visit their website: www.theatreonfire.org
