Wednesday, January 15, 2014

203. Review of THE SURRENDER (January 12, 2014)


203. THE SURRENDER
 
 

Former New York City Ballet ballerina Toni Bentley’s THE SURRENDER, AN EROTIC MEMOIR, named one of the Best Books of 2004 by Publishers Weekly and one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times, was adapted by Ms. Bentley and Isabelle Stoffel as a one-woman play that premiered in Madrid in 2012 and went on to be produced in various international venues in Europe and South America, including a stint at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was in Edinburgh that philanthropist Carol Tambor was so enthused by it her foundation gave it the Best of Edinburgh Award, thereby subsidizing its New York premiere. Now, under the title THE SURRENDER, it’s at the Clurman Theatre, starring Laura Campbell under the direction of Zishan Ugurlu.

 
Laura Campbell. Photo: Paul Kolnik.
 
            Given this distinguished pedigree, I think a lot of people who see this 70-minute piece are going to be scratching their heads and wondering, what were these people thinking? Ms. Bentley’s memoir is a very personal account of what she considers the transcendent, almost religious experiences she had after discovering the pleasures of sodomy—anal sex, that is, or, as she usually refers to it, “ass-fucking”—during which she learned the value of submission (as per the play’s title) to her partner’s domination. These experiences are narrated by a character coyly called the Woman (Ms. Campbell), when it's no secret that it’s meant to be the Australian-born Ms. Bentley. Looking like a high-class call girl, she appears in a black lace camisole, gartered black stockings, a black silk dressing gown, and black high heels. She occupies a simple bordello-like bedroom setting, designed by Edward T. Morris and lit by Masha Tsimring, consisting of an off-white oval rug, a chaise longue, and a vanity table, with sheer white curtains at the rear. Using high-flown, pseudo-poetic prose, she tells us, in considerable detail, of her extensive sexual history, beginning with a masturbatory experience she had at 16 after seeing a porn film in a French art cinema. Her language struggles to raise the level of discourse on such private affairs, but she nevertheless is fond of referring to her genitals as her pussy (although avoiding the c-word), while freely sprinkling the air with the usual slang for sex acts and male sex organs.
 
 
 Laura Campbell. Photo: Paul Kolnik.

            Once she has found sexual paradise through her “back door” with a fellow she calls “A-Man” she becomes so obsessed with the act that she keeps a numbered account of each such encounter, the total reaching 298 before her relationship with this perfect lover ends. She concludes by saying. 
 
A-Man was my God. But, I fear, no man can be God again for me—and I mourn the loss of my insistent innocence with all my heart. He burned holes through the parameters of my existing world so that gratitude flows like water.
 
But he no longer lives in my ass. I live there now. What a place.

A similar mingling of the sacred and profane runs throughout the text, often not merely teetering on the edge of but actually falling into the abyss of pretentiousness.

 
Laura Campbell. Photo: Paul Kolnik.

Ms. Bentley, a Guggenheim Fellow who has written other, non-sexual, books, takes pride in having broken boundaries with a best-seller on a presumably taboo subject, although it’s difficult to see what could possibly be verboten in a sex-obsessed culture that allows literary pornography like FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY to make their authors millionaires. But how do you make a personal narrative about a woman’s sexual obsession dramatically interesting when all you have is the woman herself? We only hear about her frequent sexual hookups, so what good does it do to have the actress playing the woman walk about the stage acting as seductively as she can when there’s no one there with whom to interact? For whom is she being so seductive? If this is a story that must be told so as to encourage others to find similar bliss, why not play it straight and have the actress simply tell us her story directly, without all the boudoir baloney? I had no problem viewing the teasing glimpses the lovely Ms. Campbell gives of her shapely legs and derriere, but I couldn’t figure out what the purpose was. Does telling a sexy story require that one tell it sexily? Might it not be even more erotic if the actress, while still being appealingly beautiful, were to deliver it directly? Ms. Ugurlu’s direction, taking its cue from the text’s instructions, fails to bring the woman or her story to life.


Laura Campbell. Photo: Paul Kolnik.
 
Above all, however, the writing, with all its artificiality and overblown sensuality, demands an actress with much deeper theatrical chops than Ms. Campbell, with her high-pitched, unmusical voice, possesses. She seems too young and fresh for the role, which would be much more convincing in the hands of someone who could express the worldliness and knowing humor of a mature, sophisticated woman, not one who seems newly out of the gate. Moreover, the script establishes that the character is a dancer, yet Ms. Campbell’s physicality does nothing to persuade us of this. A dancer-actress might, indeed, have allowed a totally different approach to the material, neither the present one, nor the straightforward one I suggested, but a dance-infused one combining natural behavior with sensually appropriate choreography.

 
Laura Campbell. Photo: Paul Kolnik.
 
THE SURRENDER, by the way, offers some practical advice for those who wonder about the hygienic aspects of anal sex, and it might, perhaps, be best to conclude with it for those thinking about trying this at home. The Woman realizes that, while “infinite love is all well and good,” most people can’t help “seeing shit, shit, shit everywhere!” Not to worry, she informs us. “All you have to do is a nice little finger-in-the-ass cleaning with your middle finger at the end of your bath.” To reassure us, she notes, “Shit is not my thing, either.” And then she adds, “Ass-fucking is about not being afraid of your real shit—to find the shit that really matters.” Let that be a lesson to you.