Jerker, A Pornographic Elegy
The Kings Head Theatre, 30th Oct - 23rd Nov 2019
I can’t shake the feeling that nearly every new piece of queer theatre I'm seeing is coming with an increasingly large slice of full frontal nudity on the side. Not a problem in itself except to say that what once felt like an innovative, fresh and even a brave artistic decision for an actor to reveal all for a role, is fast beginning to feel at best par-for-the-course and at worst, I suspect, a marketing device designed to generate sufficient social media buzz to secure a boost in audience numbers. This strategy may be overlooked given just how hard it can be for many theatre productions to actually break even, but it’s a consideration that needs to be taken carefully by directors and producers before our stories find themselves feeling unoriginal and bereft of their power to engage, provoke, move or shock altogether. That being said, there are always exceptions to every rule and thankfully Jerker, A Pornographic Elegy by Robert Chesley is one of them. With a return to the London stage after nearly 30 years, it’s back with a brand new production at The Kings Head Theatre.
One look at the history of this play, first performed in Los Angeles in 1986, leave’s no doubt about its particular ability to provoke, as the US Justice Department were asked to prosecute radio station KPFK on ‘criminal charges of broadcasting obscenity’ when the station played excerpts of the play. In the UK too, Jerker’s message was once again being stymied when its 1990 production shocked the theatre-going public, and it’s already brief scheduled five day run was cut short. Tragically this play, and its uncompromising look at the effect AIDS was having on a devastated and scared community, found itself being silenced at a time when its message couldn’t have been needed more.
Given this one act, two hander (no pun intended) takes place years before our social interactions would be changed forever by the advent of instagram, twitter, snapchat and Skype, the arrival of HIV and AIDS in 1980’s San Francisco meant phone sex would become a legitimate alternative to the club, sauna and bath house scenes, where men could still connect on an intimate and highly sexualised level, as this production pulls no punches in showing, as it’s participants were finding new ways to turn themselves on, get themselves off, and be creative in the ways they managed to play out their wildest fantasies from the confines, and safety of their own bedrooms. It is in this landscape that we find Bert (Tibu Fortes) and J.R. (Tom Joyner) their phone-sex first date being aptly drawn to a close with the accompanying sound of The Village People’s Sex Over The Phone.
Bert and J.R’s relationship is seen developing on stage only through their ongoing phone calls, Bert imagining his caller to be some random, anonymous stranger, initially unaware they had met briefly in a club where he had actually given J.R. his number. The illusiveness of this memory only serves to heighten the thrill, and whilst their conversations start out as exploratory sexual forays, initially led by J.R., to see just how susceptible the other would be to various role-play scenarios, the pair continue to talk each other towards increasingly intense and graphic climaxes as the phone calls continue. The language is explicit and the results explosive, highlighted, as the lights go down on a second conversation, by the perfectly timed sound of Divines disco anthem, Shoot Your Shot. The musical interludes remain similarly inspired throughout this production, with Aimii Stewart’s Knock On Wood, Donna Summers I Feel Love, Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing, and Sylvester’s You Make Me Feel, (Mighty Real), just some of the tracks that provide the soundtrack to a relationship we watch change from pure unadulterated sexual gratification to something altogether deeper. (Also earning sound designer Tingying Dong an Offies nomination in the process)
Both Bert and J.R. are fully aware of the devastation being left in the wake of the AIDS epidemic, and alongside their steamy sessions of sexual role-play, these two anonymous souls slowly begin to find in each other a sense of hope, comfort and security, the landline having now become a lifeline to each of them. This movement from the initial, incredibly raw sexual energy, not to mention action of the first half, to the more contemplative nature of the second half is really the plays strength, as sexual gratification gives way to Bert and J.R.’s more emotional needs. Music is soon heralding a shift in the relationship once again however, and as Elton John’s Song For Guy underscores a number of failed attempts by J.R. to get a response beyond Bert’s answer machine during his increasingly frantic calls, we realise that as unconventional as their relationship is, it was always going to be on borrowed time.
Tibu Fortes and Tom Joyner confidently take their characters through all the shades of their changing relationship under Ben Andersons impressive direction. At one point the sweat is impressively pouring from Joyner with the energy he expels during one exceptionally long and physical telephone fantasy session. Fortes also take his character neatly from amused curiosity to eager participator, leaving enough energy in his engine for his characters transition into someone more vulnerable and fragile, an emotional state Joyner is more than capable of matching at the plays end. Whilst the conversations around HIV/AIDS have clearly dramatically changed since the play was originally written, what was once a shamefully silenced educational play that showed, with raw honesty, the effects the epidemic was having on the gay community, Jerker now serves as an important reminder of that time being an equally raw piece of history. “Nobody ever died from being offended by what they hear or see, but prudery kills’. With these words from Robert Chesley ringing in our ears, we can but hope that important messages like this will never find themselves being silenced again.
★★★★
