Theater: The Sensuality Play is a sexy, creative blast

Imagine your first day at college. You wander among unfamiliar buildings, trying to find your classroom. Once found, you calculatingly choose a seat and try to divine who your classmates are from their dress, body language, and verbal/nonverbal behavior. Who is hot? Who seems like one to avoid? All this was my actual experience in arriving at The Sensuality Play, a remarkable experience presented by The New Group and written by the young playwright Justin Kuritzkes. The structure was daring...6 actors scattered among 7 audience members in a circle of chairs, sans props, conventional stage effects, or costumes, all in a normal classroom at of one of several NYC colleges (I attended at Lehman College in the Bronx, in what appeared to be a dance rehearsal room, bare of furniture except for the chairs). Who around you was an actor, who was in the audience? (only clue--the actors did not have programs) The play began with the remarkable (presence, eyes) Jake Horowitz sauntering in, sitting down, and talking to us solo for 30 minutes (!) about a group sex experiment of 6 freshmen gone wrong. This was a really challenging effort for Mr. Horowitz (and for the rest of the terrific young cast), who described multiple sexual acts explicitly, casually, and sometimes humerously, all while making intense eye contact with individual audience members (at least with those of us willing to do so!). The other 5 cast members had similar roles, either solo or with a single partner, giving additional perspectives on the sexual adventure. Some actors left after they were done, others stayed in the circle. There was little or no physical interaction between the actors, only talking. Only one pair really had dialogue. Yet the pace did not flag, and the play never descended into preachiness, so often the pitfall of young playwrights. We were blissfully allowed to draw our own conclusions without a closing "morale". 

All this was amazingly powerful, evoking my memories of college, early sexuality, awkward attempts at socialization (millenials seem to use sex earlier and with less drama than we did at my college in the late 70s). As a past teacher of medical students, I also had the odd feeling of being 60% an audience member, 20% an encounter group member, and 20% the instructor of a circle of students that I was supposed to lead somehow (perhaps just a reflex of sitting down in a circle!). I gained some insight into how this generation deals with socialization and sex, and how, now as then, superficial nonchalance can mask anxiety and neurosis, and has difficulty interfacing with sexual abuse/crime. I was also envious of the casual description of trying different sexual experiences than the one you are "programmed" for. The playwright built in some complexity here, as it seemed "cool" yet uncomfortable for the students to try new sexual acts even if you did not find, say, sex with a guy particularly gratifying (wow, how things have changed). I do not know if the playwright invented it, but the described Twin Towers sexual position was really hilarious and raunchy. 

After such a strong start, the play also ends really well, as the couple-gone-bad delivers parallel testimonials that gradually align, rather like an electronic music piece with eventual synchronization of disparate parts, ending in unison. The strong writing skillfully interwove themes of safe spaces vs. sexual expression, group vs. individual identity, and how 9-11 impacted their culture (warning: 9-11 irreverence has now entered the theater). All in all, an exciting, dynamic and innovative night at the theater.