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Friday, June 3, 2005
‘Sex Habits’ opens Synchronicity’s season
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “The Sex Habits of American Women.” Through June 25.
Sex, lies and videotape: What more do you need in a play about contemporary attitudes toward intimate relationships?
We get all of the above in “The Sex Habits of American Women,” the provocatively titled season opener for Synchronicity Performance Group, which uses its own version of a candid camera to pose some heated, if ultimately unanswerable, questions about the title subject.
Is it better for women to remain in an unfulfilling relationship rather than have no lasting relationship at all? Must they shoehorn conformity into their lives at the risk of sacrificing freedom and personal expression? Do women today have so many choices that it’s harder to find genuine happiness?
It’s hard to say. In her funny and problematic examination of how women have changed, or haven’t, over the last 50 years, playwright Julie Marie Myatt juxtaposes a family meltdown, circa 1950, with documentary footage of a filmmaker interviewing a “modern” woman about her sex life. In the final analysis, “The Sex Habits of American Women” doesn’t always hold together, but it does offer a fresh, intriguing angle from which to view women’s so-called liberation over the last half-century.
The main story —- the live-action tale performed onstage —- features an over-stressed, self-absorbed psychoanalyst named Fritz Tittels (Eric Brooks, with heavy Germanic accent) who believes he’s writing a groundbreaking study of feminine desire. Yet the clueless Fritz is oblivious to his own family’s dysfunction: His wife, Agnes (a graceful Jackie Prucha), is having an affair with his young colleague (Cary Donaldson), and his “old maid” daughter, Daisy (Hope Mirlis), has some serious identity problems, which the author’s autocratic ways only exacerbate.
The family narrative is contrasted with black-and-white footage periodically projected on the rear panels of the Spartan set that serves as the Tittels’ living room. In it, an independent woman named Joy (a brave and sly Carolyn Cook) is questioned by a documentary filmmaker (Daniel May, mostly unseen) about her private history. Joy talks about failed marriages, numerous liaisons and physical wounds with an air of unregretful ease. She’s confident and unflappable, a radical departure from the Tittels women; she even turns the tables on her interrogator, parsing his questions and demanding that he surrender personal information as well.
At first, the tense and stifling atmosphere of the Tittels’ “den of domesticity” —- as Fritz damns it —- feels appropriately outdated compared with Joy’s breezy, confessional style. But as the play unfolds, things get more complicated, a direction perhaps tipped off by Joy’s treatment of her own daughter. Both the play’s sex “experts,” it seems, have parenting issues.
As directed by Michele Pearce, the play’s toggling between past and present makes for a fascinating setup. The Tittels’ world assumes the look of a suffocating still life, while the camerawork depicts hand-held freedom of movement —- and all the instability, visual and emotional, that comes with it. (Curiously enough, the more unconventional slant on lovemaking occurs in the Tittels’ boudoir, where twin beds are inventively hung on the walls, in part to save space and time.)
Despite some sharp insights and jousting dialogue, “Sex Habits of American Women” is not without glaring second-act shortcomings. But plot fissures and some head-scratching character motivations cannot be discussed without giving away key points. Let’s just say the final character arrangement in the Tittels family portrait feels superficial and unconvincing, as does an extraneous character that links the two eras. It makes for a strangely flat finale.
That said, Synchronicity deserves credit for tackling a promising new work with a cool technological twist that’s sure to leave audiences talking. Or arguing.
Somebody roll tape.
THE VERDICT: A tricky, engaging, not entirely successful look at the evolution of modern sexual attitudes.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays. Through June 25. $15-$20. Presented by Synchronicity Performance Group. 7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Ave., Atlanta. 404-325-5168, www.synchrotheatre.com.
