Power play

SINGAPORE — Be careful what you wish for — or at least that’s the message David Ives’ play Venus In Fur seeks to convey. But for those looking for a darkly delicious time at the theatre, the Singapore Repertory Theatre’s portrayal of power and sexual desire is not to be missed.

After a tediously dull day spent auditioning actresses for the female lead in his upcoming play adapted from the 1870s novella Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz) by Leopold von Scher-Masoch, playwright/director Thomas (Anson Mount) is about to call it a day when a soaking wet and very insistent Vanda (Steffanie Leigh) arrives to cajole, charm and guilt him into letting her try out for the part of the character who also happens to share her name.

She persuades him to read and play the part of the male lead and morphs, to Thomas’ surprise, from a ditzy all-American blonde to a 19th century sensualist and seductress mid-scene, and even mid-sentence. What begins as a charming and entertaining role-play, however, quickly grows dark as the distinctions between the play on stage and the play-within-a-play grow hazy and blurred. Thrown off guard, Thomas and his audience find themselves hurtling towards a dangerous point of no return where all expectations of pain, pleasure, gender and even reality are upended and thrown out the window.

I have my problems with the play’s ending — which gives the impression of having employed an unnecessary deus ex machina to explain the mystery of Vanda from a lack of imagination. But in its entirety, Ives’ play is to be hailed as a theatrical gem, bursting with natural comedy and surprising intellectual force.

The comedy is brought beautifully to life by Mount and, in particular, Leigh’s spot-on transitions between Vanda the actress and Vanda the seductress. She manages it impressively, sometimes with nothing but a shift in the lilt of her voice and a cruel curl of her lips. The only thing that could have enhanced her performance would be a pair of shinier and even redder boots.

But it is the play’s intellectual heft that lingers and disturbs long after the curtains have descended. It spares nothing the charge of sexism (“‘And the Lord hath smitten him and delivered him into a woman’s hands’ — It’s pretty sexist, isn’t it?”) and no one from being accused of seeking power despite appearances. To create a work of art is to seek a form of domination, whether over actors and actresses as a director or over characters as a writer.

On leaving the theatre, one cannot help but wonder what part we the audience have played in this, Ives’ own work of art and play for power. KARIN LAI