Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes: memories of desire
20 Jan 2020

by Drew Rowsome -
Production photos by Joy von Tiedmann

Do you know you’re coming on to me?

The best line in Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes is quoted in the press release and on the Tarragon Theatre website so that spoiler is already readily available. Not to worry, because this is a play written by Hannah Moscovitch (Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, What a Young Wife Ought to Know, Bunny) so there are plenty more laceratingly funny lines throughout. And a lot to say about the nature of sexual desire, the power imbalance between men and women, and the frailty of memory.

Matthew Edison (Bunny, Sextet) is our narrator, ignoring the fourth wall and speaking in the third person. He is a professor and author of some renown but with a flailing personal life. He drinks too much and is separated from his third wife. He is also quite genial and has an everyman sexiness that appeals, despite many clues that he is not necessarily a reliable source of information. He has a story to tell but even he admits it is a cliché: the professor having sex with a much younger student. He decries the multiple versions of the trope, indicting the authors as dirty old men.

The line quoted is one of his attempts to make himself the object of desire and the voice of reason in the relationship that develops. He also has contempt for the way that the authors make the "girl" the centre of the story but leave her as the least written, least fleshed-out character. And then he, and Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, introduces Annie (Alice Snaden) who appears to be a very underwritten character. We are only privy to the professor/author's version and Annie's symbolic red coat is the major character trait he gives to her.

Of course Moscovitch is not writing a straight white privileged male manifesto justifying intergenerational power-imbalanced heterosexual activity, but she takes her time setting up the final reveal. While most of the audience surely saw it coming, the twist does pack a punch and is nicely done while still leaving much realistic ambiguity.

Edison excels as the reluctant lothario and while he is a sex object, he doesn't shy from being scathingly sarcastic, arrogant and self-centred enough to make the audience cringe, before papering it over with a wink, a quip or a flash of vulnerability. Snaden has a much tougher role as she is required to be somewhat blank so the the professor/author can project his fantasies on to her, but she also has to project confusion, innocence and a certain cunning. Fortunately Snaden is up to the challenge and Moscovitch's dialogue helps, it is smooth, choppy and full of the unsaid. It is also highly comic, Snaden has one line that convulsed the audience with its sheer witty coarse shock value. And validity.

The two parry and thrust, always leaving us aware that we are seeing a specific vantage point. It is disconcerting and quite voyeuristic. We learn little initially about Annie's actual desires because she only exists in the professor/author's memory, but masculinity as a whole gets a good drubbing. The novel he is currently working on is about lumberjacks and there is a great riff on puns using the word "wood." But when Annie is asked directly about her wants, she explodes in confusion and provides a very important clue. That she, as the object, is the only one half-dressed at the time makes it all the more painful.

While the performances are powerful and perfectly pitched between reminiscence and reality, there is an intrusive score and more gags in the projections than are necessary. The set is vaginal with rows of doors lined up as if preparing for a classic French farce, and Annie's first appearance is highly stylized as comedic. It is an over-potent mix of metaphors piled on to what is a subversive sleight of hand very well played. With a lovely meta-theatrical dig at how we deal with memory, guilt and rewriting our foibles.