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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.
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.
