Any assumptions that The Rep is old school fly out the window as It’s Just Sex hits the stage in its Australian premiere.
The play is hot off the off-Broadway sell-out list and hot, hot, hot in sizzling content, but not too hot for The Rep to handle; albeit it is the sexiest show they have dared to do in 107 years. Director Erik Strauts thinks Rep audiences are going to find it not just hilariously funny but also thought-provoking. He envisages lively conversations in cars and bedrooms after each performance.
The play by Los Angeles-based playwright Jeff Gould is a new-wave romantic comedy. Well, according to its director, it starts in that vein through Act I but in Act II it becomes something else “The results of the actions of Act I hit home in Act II,” he says.
It’s about three couples whose teen children are away for two whole weeks at summer camp. Child-free, the parents get together for a social evening, have a few cocktails, then a few more and then they start delving into issues and actions they normally would not broach. Partner-swapping, for one. “But,” says director Strauts, “all three relationships have significant challenges and Act II probes those challenges.
You could say that in It’s Just Sex, the subtext is 'or is it’?”
The way the play delves into many of the issues of modern marriage tapped a nerve among American audiences, resulting in the play’s runaway success. It is still running in the US and picking up lots of awards as it goes.
The couples depicted include a family therapist, a masseuse, a lawyer, an uptight nerd, a predatory novelist and a finance executive.
“It’s not an epic piece of theatre. It’s a relationship play and what attracted me to it was its comedy,” explains Strauts. “It’s not intense like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Nor is it deep and probing like a Shakespeare or an Ibsen. It looks at heterosexual partnership challenges, things most of us may have encountered in life. It’s about fidelity and affairs and how to handle them. As they say in the script, it is about things we usually sweep under the carpet but in the events of that night, they lift that carpet up."
Performing in this Rep production are Bronwyn Ruciak, James Whitrow, Luke Budgen, Sharon Pitardi, Tess O’Flaherty, Laura Antoniazzi, Izzy Rositano and Jonathan Johnston. Strauts is pleased with this cast and the way that Johnston was able to step in late in the piece to replace an actor who had to withdraw.
The show has been coming together well with actors honing their American accents as they go. If they fall foul of a pronunciation, Strauts’s American wife is there to put them straight.
Strauts has been busy in Adelaide theatre for nigh on 50 years. He’s 63, retired from an IT career, and has been everything backstage from sound and lighting tech to set builder, producer and stage manager. The latter is his favourite role for some reason. He’s done his share of acting but, he says, he loves directing more. He’s worked with Unseen, Blackwood, Stirling Players, Galleon, St Jude’s and now, for the first time, The Rep.
“I was aged only 14 when I got involved in theatre,” he says. “It was the first thing my parents let me do unchaperoned.”
It was not just the greasepaint and drama which lured the lad. “Theatre people always had the best parties,” he admits.
“And many pretty girls with not so many males. I’ve had two wives and I met them both on stage.”
It’s Just Sex runs at The Arts Theatre from June 18 to 27.
Book at adelaiderep.comAdelaide Repertory Theatre or 82125777
