May 30, 2006
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way’, says Helen, one half of the upper class pair in Steven Berkoff’s verse play Decadence, which is being staged by the Philadelphia Players at the Burton Taylor Studio. She does so after riding her married lover in imitation of her hunting mount, graphically describing the social whirl and gory chase of riding to hounds. Starting off side-saddle, resoundingly slapping his rear, she ends up astride, bouncing, graphically describing the kill, the climactic blooding of the younger members of the hunt immediately preceding her battle cry.
In this study of sex and class, Molly Davies and David Cochrane take two roles apiece; that of Helen and her lover Steve, and of Steve’s nouveau riche wife, Sybil, and the gangster she has hired to discover his infidelities. In alternating scenes in the typical Berkoff style of traded confessions and drawn-out anecdotes, they act out key moments of their respective affairs; the toffs in a ‘sumptuous pad’ in the West End, the working class in a suburban house (the kind that can be found, according to Helen, in ‘rancid East Cheam’). The ambit* of the upper crust in the play is wide, taking in concerts, the theatre and supper at the Savoy, whereas the flat-vowelled Sybil and Les act out their highly carnal affair behind closed doors. What unites both couples is the frankness and depth of their sexual talk, revealing to the audience the bones of their difference, and the values that Berkoff sees the English attaching to sex.
More than twenty-five years on from its first performance, the stripping down of the English class system in Decadence defiantly survives as a familiar dramatic and fictional trope. It is tempting to see its invective of class war as a dusty relic of Thatcher’s England, and viewed as a contemporary piece this play doesn’t quite push the boundaries it did in the 1980s now that sex and sexuality in their many variant forms are the constant themes of film, theatre and television.
Molly Davies’ performance is spot-on, easing into the contrasting accents and physicalities required from her for the two roles. The seams show more in Cochrane’s breathless and halting portrayal of Steve and Les, but his energy is palpable and helps especially to realize the sensuality of the caddish Steve. The stark set, composed of nothing more than a central settee, does much to keep the audience’s mind on the fact that we are being invited to see these two couples as a mirror not only of one another, but also of ourselves.
*Ambit – 1. A circuit, compass, or circumference 1597; 2. The limits of a district 1845; fig. The compass of actions, words etc. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
In this study of sex and class, Molly Davies and David Cochrane take two roles apiece; that of Helen and her lover Steve, and of Steve’s nouveau riche wife, Sybil, and the gangster she has hired to discover his infidelities. In alternating scenes in the typical Berkoff style of traded confessions and drawn-out anecdotes, they act out key moments of their respective affairs; the toffs in a ‘sumptuous pad’ in the West End, the working class in a suburban house (the kind that can be found, according to Helen, in ‘rancid East Cheam’). The ambit* of the upper crust in the play is wide, taking in concerts, the theatre and supper at the Savoy, whereas the flat-vowelled Sybil and Les act out their highly carnal affair behind closed doors. What unites both couples is the frankness and depth of their sexual talk, revealing to the audience the bones of their difference, and the values that Berkoff sees the English attaching to sex.
More than twenty-five years on from its first performance, the stripping down of the English class system in Decadence defiantly survives as a familiar dramatic and fictional trope. It is tempting to see its invective of class war as a dusty relic of Thatcher’s England, and viewed as a contemporary piece this play doesn’t quite push the boundaries it did in the 1980s now that sex and sexuality in their many variant forms are the constant themes of film, theatre and television.
Molly Davies’ performance is spot-on, easing into the contrasting accents and physicalities required from her for the two roles. The seams show more in Cochrane’s breathless and halting portrayal of Steve and Les, but his energy is palpable and helps especially to realize the sensuality of the caddish Steve. The stark set, composed of nothing more than a central settee, does much to keep the audience’s mind on the fact that we are being invited to see these two couples as a mirror not only of one another, but also of ourselves.
*Ambit – 1. A circuit, compass, or circumference 1597; 2. The limits of a district 1845; fig. The compass of actions, words etc. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.