Play dares not speak its name

By LINDA HERRICK arts editor

Reading through Mark Ravenhill's controversial script about a group of drugged-up young things "doing it" in one way or another, there is a moment (scene four, page 26) when you gasp, pull away and think, "How are they going to do that on stage?"

And then you read on, and realise there is more - some would say worse - to come. So to speak. It's hard (sorry) not to revert to appalling puns when dealing with Shopping & ****ing.

Ravenhill's ground-breaking drama is so breathtakingly explicit, it does take time to start understanding what it all means: that consumerism can be arousing - and that sex is a transaction too.

Love is for sale - the words "rent boy" say it as well as anything.

Shopping features five characters - with the male parts named after members of the band Take That, Ravenhill's little joke.

Mark (played by Shane Boshier) is a young recovering addict under instruction to avoid emotional attachment at this stage of rehab, hence his efforts to have uninvolved sex. "I wanted something that was a transaction," he says.

Pre-rehab Mark used to flat with Lulu (Emily O'Brien-Brown) and Robbie (Charlie McDermott), who are forced to sell telephone sex to recoup money after a drug rip-off.

Despite his best efforts at alienation, Mark is in love with rent boy Gary (David van Horn), whose psyche is deadened by sexual abuse.

Straightforward gay sex is not enough for Gary. He needs the ultimate penetration to deal with his pain ... At the centre of this vortex of sex, drugs and consumption is Brian (Jon Brazier), a menacing "businessman" (ie. career criminal) who has control over them all.

"In a strange way I am the only normal person in the play," says Brazier. "I am pulling all the strings and that's the part I like."

Lulu and Robbie's careers as drug dealers are an immediate disaster and Brian has to show his true colours: recoup the money or face torture. Yes, but he is really doing them a favour, Brazier insists. "He does it in a fatherly way. I'm there to teach them and they will learn, by hook or by crook."

Director Stuart Devenie likens London playwright Ravenhill to Chekhov, says Brazier: "He is a fantastic writer. He gives you no clues. You have to work it all out yourself."

The latter stages of the play includes a storyline involving sex in a toilet with Fergie and Princess Di. The London setting has been moved to Auckland, and the two female icons will be changed to celebrity icons relevant to New Zealand, Brazier says with a chortle.

Shopping, written in 1996, has been staged around the world; the original London production played in 1997 at Wellington's Downstage Theatre, where it attracted the ire of the Rev Graham Capill and the Christian Coalition for its "moral depravity and indecency". It sold out before opening night.

But at its heart, the drama has a deeply compassionate message that love can exist even if it's expressed in the strangest of ways.

The ending will shock many. "Yes, that scene ... is pretty tough," Brazier says. "We did that scene first in rehearsal, to find the awfulness, and see how you get there.

"[People] do try to shy away from emotions but as human beings we are unable to a lot of the time. We all have an emotional response."

Performance:

What: Shopping & ****ing

Where & when: Silo Theatre, May 26-June 12