Sex life of a shut-in
While it might seem a smaller and more manageable than larger living situations, the two-person share house can be a high-risk proposition: choose the right person and you’ve got a friend for life. Pick the wrong one, and you’re stuck in a claustrophobic, sexless version of a toxic relationship.
The latter is certainly the case for Michael and Justine, the unlikely flatmates thrust together in playwright Lucinda Coxon’s Herding Cats, making its Australian debut this week at Red Stitch.Played by Paul Ashcroft and Ngaire Dawn Fair, Michael and Justine have developed a deep and poisonous reliance on each other, using their poky central London flat as a buffer against the outside world.
“It’s a dark play, but with a hell of a lot of comedy too. Justine does most of the talking about how her day is going, and I just listen. My eyes never leave her, but there’s no sexual spark,” Ashcroft told the Star Observer during a break in rehearsals. “We’re forced into being something of a couple. Mine is an agoraphobic character, so I spend all day in the house by myself. When she comes back, I soak up everything that she’s been doing and live vicariously through her. Of course she’s very dramatic and needs someone to listen to her, so it’s a very handy relationship from both sides.”
Ashcroft described the pair as two characters “wrapped up in their own loneliness”. For Justine, that loneliness is manifested as a permanent state of rage, as she’s driven to drink by her ex-hippie boss, a well-to-do baby boomer who’s managed to easily acquire everything that’s now frustratingly out of reach for her generation. For Michael, the loneliness turns inward, making him a shut-in.
“He was a ‘normal’ person, for lack of a better word, until he went through an unexplained trauma that’s put him into a state of anxiety. He can’t leave the house, so he works as a phone-sex worker from home. His specialty is impersonating a woman,” said Ashcroft. Michael’s story arc in Herding Cats focuses on his increasingly odd relationship with one particular client, Scotsman Saddo (Dion Mills). Starting as run-of-the-mill phone chat, their conversations soon take a darker, master/slave turn. Michael soon finds himself playing the role of Saddo’s daughter over the phone – Scottish schoolgirl accent and all (although we have to admit that when he gave us a sample, it sounded uncannily like Mrs Doubtfire).
“It’s a relationship that breaks through his professional barrier, and he starts to develop a codependency with the guy which becomes quite interesting. It’s certainly the most left-of-centre character I’ve ever played. The play is based in reality…but it’s so strange.”
INFO: Herding Cats, Red Stitch Theatre, June 7-July 6. www.redstitch.net
