PUTTING WORDS IN HIS MOUTH
In the play Manwatching, male comedians are handed a script they’ve never seen by an anonymous female playwright,
Every Friday and Saturday night at Tarragon Theatre until Dec. 16, a male comedian — a different one every time — will walk onto the stage of the theatre’s studio space and begin a 75-minute performance. The audience has no idea what to expect next and neither does the performer.
In Manwatching, comedians including Colin Mochrie, Faisal Butt, Sean Cullen and Craig Lauzon are handed a script they’ve never seen, by a playwright whose name is never revealed, and have to begin reading.
It’s unfamiliar territory for both the performers and the audience, as the script dives into the playwright’s sexual fantasies, thoughts about the repression and power of female (heterosexual) desire, and the irony of having a man deliver such ideas to an audience.
Through an email interview with the anonymous female playwright, based in the U.K., the Star learned more about why Manwatching leans into the unknown to reveal the things we can’t say out loud:
Manwatching was partly inspired by a scientific study
“As a person who lives in the world, I have always been aware of the way I needed to check myself so that I don’t give more authority or attention to people who are speaking with male voices.
“I heard somewhere that it’s scientific: it has to do with how much bass they have; our ears are more attuned to them. But as a human that can only communicate my thoughts through the voice that we’re less inclined to listen to, that’s annoying. I wanted to take down how annoying that is by getting a male standup comedian to speak for me.”
The script reveals intimate details
The play delves into the playwright’s deepest desires but also leaves the performer open and vul- nerable, too. “One thing about watching the speaker is that the audience watches something quite intimate: a man who is used to doing his own material giving himself over to my words and trusting that it will go well. That’s a pretty intimate thing to watch, in a show with content that feels pretty intimate.”
The playwright chose to remain anonymous
She wanted to avoid internet trolls who attack women who speak openly about their sex lives. But there’s a larger reason: “If I’d written it under my name, it would have seemed too personal, almost indulgent, which is funny because I am not someone who is at all drawn to speaking about my sex life publicly. The fact that it’s anonymous makes the message feel somehow both more universal in the moments when the audience want to identify with the script, and easier to be objective about when the audience don’t identify.”
The Weinstein connection
An earlier version of the script re- ferred to a Harvey Weinstein-like scenario, before the scandal over the now disgraced Hollywood producer broke.
“In the original version of the show there’s a line that basically says, ‘I once fantasized about giving a gross old movie producer (oral sex) to get a job writing my own TV show.’
“So clearly, I’d internalized even that element of culture! I’ve written a couple of new lines, and mentioned Weinstein’s name, because I wanted to make it as crystal clear as possible to those potential audience mem- bers that this show wants to dig into the ways that some heterosexual women have internalized and then (in their fantasies) taken ownership of a world that tells us we should be disempowered.”
Everyone should write an anonymous play
“Everyone should try it,” says the playwright.
“It’s a bit like it’s your birthday and nobody knows; you’re excited, you’re anxious, you’re a little bit sad and nobody knows why.”