Sydney Festival part 2

44 Sex Acts in One Week

Seymour Centre
Sydney, Australia
13 January 2021

Written by award-winning playwright David Finnigan, 44 Sex Acts in One Week is the story of the journalist Celina Valderrama, who has been tasked to review a book that advise to experience more than forty sex acts that are meant to change one’s life. With the deadline looming on the horizon, she needs a willing partner in crime and since options are limited, ends up with her office nemesis and lefty eco-activist Alab Delusa to experience and review kink in every shape and form.

As the premise suggests, 44 Sex Acts in One Week is a subversive yet romantic sex-comedy that is part radio play, part stand-up with no real set apart from fresh produce to simulate sex acts and a spontaneity that was preserved by having had only very limited rehearsals. 

The result is a performance that despite smutty content manages to maintain a playful edge and having premiered on the radio due to the implications of the pandemic, the script has been tweaked over time and expanded to fully take advantage of the space the stage offers, which enabled Finnigan to weave in satirical element that aim at the ubiquitous wellness industries and its self-proclaimed gurus.

Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Opera House
Sydney, Australia
15 January 2022

Edward Albee’s own bitingly witty brand of what was coined by Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco as “theatre of the absurd” shook the reverie of the 1960s outlook on what theatre ought to look like. 

I have had the chance to see the classic “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf” and its portrayal of 1960s America incarnate on three continents and was looking forward to the resident artistic company of the Adelaide Festival Centre, i.e. State Theatre Company South Autralia’s interpretation, especially given the fact that Edward Albee’s estate refused to allow for the script to be cast racially.  

Taking the interesting angle of considering the political status quo of the new world, Sydney Theatre’s interpretation explores the depth of race and power relations of the US and thereby adds another, updated and contemporary layer to the corrosive psychodrama channelled through the lens of First Nations director and actor Margaret Harvey.

The result honours the original script yet with its ear firmly on the ground of political and societal issues of our times, subtly alludes to themes of identity and how it is perceived by artfully interrogating the darker shades of Australian society in a disruptive manner, thereby staging a transformative and inclusive theatre experience via providing a platform to a diversity of voices.

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