Sew in Love: Self-mutilation and rough sex are only the background for a relationship in crisis in Stitching
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In the final scene of Stitching, Anthony Neilsons two-hander about a couple that should never have been a couple, the female, Abby, played by spitfire Israeli actress Meital Dohan, reveals that shes done something to her privates thats a horrific form of genital mutilation. Not that theres any genital mutilation that isnt degrading and demoralizing, but Abbys is disturbing to an exponential degreeamong the worst of the tribal rites you read about in U.N. reports and news accounts.
Other critics have paused at this point in their reviews to announce theyll go not one step further with descriptions of Abbys abhorrent action. Thats fine and fair, but if you can read English, youll figure out what Abby does by the very title of Neilsons play. I only mention this because it underscores one of the plays problemsit too often favors superficial obviousness when limning key narrative blanks would do.
By the time Abby reveals her sewn-up crotch to her boyfriend Stuartessayed with keen wit and well-grounded irony by Gian Murray Gianinoweve witnessed scenes from the lives of this pair skirt back and forth in time. Stitchings first scene finds them battling the major crisis of their relationshipher unwanted, unexpected pregnancy; the second shows us Stuart bringing her back to his modest studio apartment for the first time (superb set and lighting by Garin Marshall) and paying her for sex.
We learn Abbys a student, but thats about it. Otherwise, theres precious little information conveyed about her background or his, and nothing about his profession, although we presume he must have a job of some kind or he couldnt afford to hire her. Her naiveté is laid bare, if you will, when she announces shell charge less for intercourse than oral sex and less for oral sex than for a hand-job. Abbys a piece of workwe know that.
We also learn that Stuart achieved his first orgasm while thumbing through war photography. That, in turn, helps us understand why rough sex with Abby turns him on so much. But why does Abby like it, and where does her raging self-hatredand outward angercome from? (Indeed, if her neurosis isnt extreme self-hatred, why would she sew up her vagina?) Dohan is intense, fiery, sexy, and given to the hot alluring pout, but because Abby is such a glibly written character, its impossible to accept her as real. British critic Aleks Sierz has coined the term In-Yer-Face Theatre to explain this style of play, but its seems more like in-your-dreams to me: I dont know what Stuart sees in Abby that makes him doggedly transform her from being a prostitute into a girlfriend.
Director Timothy Haskell makes some shrewd choices and some mystifying ones. He allows the actors to play each scene as an autonomous dramatic event, with its own emotional peaks and troughs; each could stand as its own one-act or Webisode. Neilsons time-bending structure lends itself to this modus operandi, but heres the thing: Even when the chronology inside the world of a play has been fractured, the experience of watching it is always on the forward march.
Haskell also has the unenviable task of having to stage a monologue for Stuart near the end of the play. Its the only case of direct address in the piece, and as such its a dramatically false, if perfectly wrought, moment. Weve spent 70 minutes watching these romantic dunderheads illustrate that they cant live with each other, without each other, or with themselves. No wonder, then, the title.
Through July 19. The Wild Project, 195 E. 3rd St. (betw. Avenue A & B), 212-352-3101; Mon.-Tues. 7; Wed.-Sat. 8; Sat. 2, $10-$45.