Production rises well above what’s written in the script
LOUIS B. HOBSON
In theatre, there is an acting exercise called status in which the actors try to see who can attain high status and who is relegated to low status.
The actor who takes control of the scene then tries to see how long they can hold their status.
Toronto playwright Erin Shields’ 2014 drama Soliciting Temptation is essentially an extended exercise in shifting status.
A middle-aged white man (Mattie Overall) is in a cheap hotel room in a third world country. Neither the fan nor the air conditioner are working, but that is only one reason he is pacing, sweating and drinking.
He’s waiting for a prostitute he hired earlier in the day.
When the girl (Patricia Cerra) arrives she appears young and timid. Her skin colouring and dress suggest we’re in a South American country.
The status is equal at this point because they are equally nervous. He is blathering on and she seems to be trying to gauge the danger he poses.
He keeps asking her how old she is and for me this was the first indication that Overall was going to give us a complex characterization, not some stereotype of a predator.
The way he asks the question makes it sound like an aphrodisiac. It’s not so much how old she is but rather that he believes she is young that excites him.
She encourages him to undress her, leaving her in bra and panties and thus shifting the status to him because people in their underwear are naturally more vulnerable.
The next big change in status comes when the girl starts speaking fluent English shocking the man and thus stealing status and she just keeps heightening that status when she berates him, calls him a pedophile and then threatens to inform his wife, adult daughter and boss.
The man foolishly wrote his hotel and room number on his business card when he made contact with the girl earlier.
Watching how the man is able to regain high status and lose it only to gain it back is what makes the play interesting, because otherwise it is really just a debate about prostitution.
He maintains that women should have the right to sell their bodies if they choose.
She maintains that no woman chooses to be a prostitutes. It’s all about pimps, pressure, privilege and poverty.
At one point during one of the girl’s tirades, the man says she sounds as if she’s quoting from a women’s studies class or the Internet and those are my sentiments precisely.
The same criticism could be levelled at the man when he begins defending, not just himself, but males in general for seeking out sex workers.
My problem was that so very little of the dialogue sounds natural. It’s all textbook lecturing as if we’re at a university debating match.
That’s where this Sage Theatre production excels. It’s riveting watching Cerra and Overall take and give over control.
There’s an intriguing twist that really is effective when the girl forces the man to strip down to his underwear putting him at his most vulnerable and yet Overall is able to take back control when he discovers the girl’s most guarded secret.
The major twists in this play are highly contrived and not even this solid acting or director Jason Mehmel’s astute, insightful direction can save them.
Still when the girl is momentarily unconscious, Overall again makes a most interesting choice in the way he touches her hair. It walks a fine line between tender and predatory.
Kudos to both Cerra and Overall for the way they handle the play’s final twist.
They make it so real you could feel the audience getting a bit on edge wondering just how much we were going to witness.
Sage’s Soliciting Temptation, a co-production with Edmonton’s Shadow Theatre, is one of those shows where what’s on stage is superior to what’s on paper.
The play runs in the Pumphouse’s Joyce Doolittle Theatre until March 4.