Review: TENDER, Soho Theatre

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

Tender, a new play from writer Dave Harris and director Matthew Xia, tells the story of a failing strip club seeking to radically rework its show to save the business, but also ultimately to teach the cohort of dancers something about themselves and their relationship to sex and sensuality along the way. It’s a classic plucky underdog story about personal growth, with a few more rippling abs thrown in for extra spice.

The thesis of the show, introduced by the only onstage female character Bea (Jessie Mei Li), is that the strip show presented by the Dancing Bears debases both performers and audience members by catering to a patriarchal performance of masculinity completely divorced from personal pleasure. It’s an intriguing premise and undoubtedly a titillating setting to unpick the knotty concepts of masculinity and patriarchy, but Tender doesn’t quite hit the mark. The characters and plotting seem a bit unbalanced and contrived – particularly the character of Bea, the serial post-grad sculptor-cum-therapist who introduces cuddly toys into the musky masculine space of the Dancing Bears’ dressing room and lectures the three dancers about their fragile masculinity. She is as hostile to the men as they are to her, and it is ultimately confusing that the character delivering the message of the play should be presented so unremittingly unfavourably.

Opposite Bea’s patronising speechifying and academicising of a sleazy sex club act, Dex Lee’s macho Jeff is presented as the primary antagonist, levelling vile misogynistic threats at the female interloper while professing to love pleasuring women. If the irony of this dynamic was intended, it doesn’t land, leaving an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

Apart from some superficial observations about homoerotic tension in the dressing room, this piece is also intensely heteronormative. Obviously, this is a story that focuses on male experience, but female pleasure and desire is addressed with such a skewed and limited perspective that it would almost be preferable for it to be done away with entirely. It’s quite difficult to get one’s head round the reasoning for making the only female character onstage the one person with no sexual experience, without coming to some damning sexist conclusions.

The company of performers, however, are strong. In a very literal sense. Choreographer and intimacy coordinator Shelley Maxwell has done stellar work in the strip performance scenes, which are met with gasps of wonder and delight from the audience. The design elements of the show are evocative and vibey and bang on the money, it’s just a shame that the show as a whole doesn’t live up to its promise.

An uproarious feast of hard nipples and oiled cheeks that unfortunately stumbles over its own argument. If only the script were as toned as the performers.

** Two stars

Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett

Tender plays at London’s Soho Theatre until 6 June, with further info here.