This Solution
Space Upstairs, Project Arts Centre
★★★★☆
Though the production bombards the audience with all manner of multimedia effects, This Solution at its heart is concerned with the most basic unit of human life, the body, in both concept and execution. A mix of drama, documentary and choreography, Shaun Dunne’s play – which he directs with Claire O’Reilly – places the corporeal front and centre, as the narrative pivots between two realms where physicality is key: the dance studio and the porn set.
After a cheeky safety announcement that sets the show’s stylistic tone, the action opens in a practice space where an unnamed twentysomething man (Adam John Richardson) is taking private lessons with a dance teacher (Jessie Thompson, also the show’s choreographer). Tentative in their verbal exchanges, student and teacher are far less inhibited in their movement. But there are limits to their relationship, and not just because of the man’s sexuality. As the lessons progress, other boundaries emerge, in the form of the pupil’s not-so-hidden past in the gay-pornography industry.
This previous life – more episode than profession – hardly comes as a surprise. From the start, the uncluttered interaction of the dance space is punctuated by raunchy routines between bethonged male performers (Adam O’Reilly, Michael McEvoy and Anderson de Souza), their vignettes staged behind a screen modulated by the clever lighting of John Gunning. The real-life basis of this strand is underscored by recorded excerpts of one man’s experiences as a gay porn “model”; his naivety about contracts and consent have traumatic consequences for his bonds of friendship and family.
Venturing behind the screen, Richardson’s character returns to his past, evoking the seamy reality of online pornography in the process. Eventually, the two story streams don’t so much converge as collide. The ensuing riot of strobe lights, pulsing techno and grinding bodies invites parallels between the hedonistic freedom of club culture and the exploitative carnality of porn, with Thompson’s earthily supportive teacher suddenly transformed into a dominatrix-like diva. More pertinently, these disorienting sensory-overloading sequences, complete with knowing echoes of Eadweard Muybridge’s nude motion studies, speak to the blurring of the real and virtual worlds in the social-media era, when online mistakes can lead a corrosive half-life for years.
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Dunne’s script makes few explicit pronouncements or judgments on these themes, though it’s clear that the dance rehearsal space has an honesty and genuine intimacy far removed from the manipulative workings of a porn shoot. There’s less restraint when it comes to re-creating the sexually graphic images that haunt the play’s protagonist, though the fact that such scenes are hardly shocking emphasises the ubiquity of pornography in contemporary society.
For all its ambition to harness different genres to create a modern-day fable, This Solution doesn’t say anything particularly new or nuanced that the average phone-in show doesn’t regularly cover at length. How it says it is a different matter, however. The explosive kineticism, dizzying visuals and jolting sound design make for an exhilarating spectacle, while the dynamics between Richardson and Thompson have an appealing rawness. In matters of the body, sensation trumps subtlety.
Continues at Project Arts Centre, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, until Sunday, October 15th
