Sweetmeat
The Old Red Lion
 

A WARNING statement opens Ivo de Jager’s Sweetmeat at the Old Red Lion, with a disembodied voice telling us that the play we are about to see contains sex, nudity, drugs, pain, internet pornography, violence and cannibalism. 

That about sums it up! 

It’s a two-hander, written, directed, acted and generally created by an acknowledged “queer team.” It tells the story of two men who happen upon each other as flatmates only to find that they hold symbiotic and extreme fantasies when it comes to sex and sado-masochistic physical expression. Sigmund, who is of Swedish origin and has just broken up with his (female) fiancee, finds sex itself never enough, while Christian has been shaped and moulded by his wacky mother who killed herself in front of him when he was a child. 

The two make friends, tentatively watch a movie (by Pasolini — the great gay icon), get close, discuss their past, dabble in folklore, have sex in passing, and then together begin the most gruesome journey into the no-man’s-land that can exist in any human psyche. For while Sigmund’s great lust is to cut open the man he loves, let the blood drain from his veins, eat his still throbbing heart and then feast on any part of him that brings him pleasure, Christian also longs to be cut open, have the blood flow from his veins and be eaten slowly from within. 

How about that for a cute meet! It’s so out there it’s almost funny! Except that the performance is deadly serious, the story reflecting known cases of cannibalism such as that of Armin Meiwesa who in 2001 advertised for — and found — a willing victim to be killed and eaten. 

The performance is uncompromising, and I hand it to the two actors, Matthew Dunlop (Sigmund) and Jamie McClean (Christian) for their hugely disciplined and almost refined enactments of such desperately unhinged behaviour. Connor Geoghegan directs with such immense finesse that the closeness of audience to actors in this small theatre does nothing to detract from the play’s powerful impact.

However, I find myself questioning the motivation of this work. There is something uncomfortable about scrutinising two people moving towards this particular, inevitable conclusion. More than anything — and despite the deeply winning performances of the cast — this is a story that relies on ghoulish fascination with perverted acts of inhumanity. 

That the play speaks to the whole queer community about loneliness and the embracing of taboo may justify its theme. Nevertheless, to suggest that cannibalism is a real and achievable fantasy seems to misrepresent and demean not only the queer community but the whole human race. Cannibalism is, after all, taboo in almost every society in the world, and understandably so.

It’s inevitable that some people will see this play as pornographic. Meanwhile it’s so shamelessly sensationalist — portraying men as one-dimensional, testosterone-fuelled psychopaths — that, if I were a man, I’d complain. 

And talking of complaining, watch you don’t get showered with stage blood from the final denouement. I did! 

Runs until November 23. Box Office: oldredliontheatre.co.uk