It's possible that sex and I aren't best mates. I kind of view the subject with some awkwardness, a degree of suspicion, and occasional periods of unbridled enthusiasm. That doesn't make me weird - after all, attitudes and feelings about sex don't just come from within ourselves, but from our environment, and sex appeared in the environment of my childhood years in rural Australia mostly as a weapon in the fight for dominance in schools, sporting arenas, and other competitive situations. Forgive me if I remain more than a little scarred from that.
So to this day I appreciate when someone can give honest information about the topic, because for me just about the only source outside the family was the book Where Did I Come From? (surely a bible of sorts for many kids of rural Australia) which at least explains basic heterosexual biology and potential outcomes when bodies are arranged in certain formations. Another manual was John Marsden's Secret Men's Business, which explains things that are otherwise only referred to in the schoolyard through innuendo or hinted at in certain TV sitcoms. In both cases, what I appreciated was the directness, which, though it seems simple, may actually be difficult or embarrassing to achieve.
All the Sex I Ever Had is 6 seniors sitting at a desk and talking directly to the audience about their sex histories. Beginning at the birth of the eldest (for us in the Espoon kaupunginteatteri in Espoo, Helsinki, it was 1932), the history is chronologically recited as experiences happen. After the eldest, the other 5 slowly enter the picture, often following the first in their (fairly diverse) life experiences. Our actors (selected from the local population, I assume with diversity, excitement, and dramatic weight of their narratives in mind) masturbate, fall in love, break up, marry, and just fuck their way through kitchen tables, hotel rooms, nightclubs, family holidays, and boats. Every 10 years, the readers are interrupted by a dance-break with the cheesiest music that can be found in that period, which also plays gently in the background (as kind of a 'smoother') as they relate their stories.
From the opening pledge which the audience takes not to reveal any of the information outside the theatre, there's immediately a sense of stripping back a lot of these covers, and attempting to directly address the audience in a type of communication that isn't possible outside the theatre. This creates some interesting moments, and when the mics are given to the audience, and it's our turn to answer the questions (which range from the innocent 'did anyone ever play doctors and nurses' to the more real-world 'did anyone sleep with a married person?').
Despite appearing to be non-theatrical, there's a distinct dramaturgical hand at play, which becomes particularly important when dealing with a moment of tragedy. Sex isn't always a happy subject, especially when consent is obviously not present. It would have been a lie to edit out these stories, and in All the Sex I Ever Had they sit as painful counter-balances to the pleasure of sharing, often plunging the audience into quite deep emotional territory quite quickly. The dramaturgical structure offers some fallbacks for this - as do the cast's support of each other, which, whilst it cannot help but feel staged, nevertheless offers some sense of safety for performers and audience. These moments tend to be the most tender and memorable, as violence interrupts the consensus of the room.
It's not the only point that's surprising about the show, which also contains enough heavy death metaphors that would make even Freud happy. For starters, the structure of the show itself is a march through time to its inevitable conclusion, which tinges every story with a sense of foreboding. The stories themselves have a kind of 'three-prong' structure: set-up, punchline, and then a kind of suggestive, poetic aftermath. (So, a fictional example might be 'I was in love with Michael. We held hands for 10 minutes each day as we waited for the school bus. His hands gave me a feeling that I could do anything'). There's also the effect of viewing someone's life from the perspective of sex, which provides something of a neat metaphor for life itself - the presumption that sex (and death) actually pervades every aspect of our lives.
It's the kind of show that has festivals drooling - and indeed, its premier from Canadian-German company Mammalian Diving Reflex was in 2012, so now the format is 6 years old and has toured to many global cities. Undoubtedly it's a celebration of the liberalism of sex, and it probably depends on your politics to what extent you accept this as revolutionary. I couldn't help but think that it's a show that preaches to the choir - those who would accept its messages have already attained quite accepting and open attitudes to the subject. The Finnish audience in Espoo was a good example, where, in the cities at least, tolerance of sexual difference can be pretty cutting-edge. Radical sexual liberationists won't be happy, though, by some of the gendering that is present from the outset, with an enthusiasm for the binary that is probably comprehensible to an audience but expedient rather than educational, and stigmas inevitably appearing (for example, when men talk about masturbation there's laughter, when women talk about it, for some reason, there's an uncomfortable silence).
But aside from this, as a purely communal experience, the format remains a valuable sort of catharsis and learning, the kind of experience that's actually quite rare inside and outside the theatre today.
All the Sex I Ever Had
Espoon kaupunginteatteri (Espoo City Theatre)
Conceived by Darren O’Donnell
Direction by Melika Ramic & Annalise Prodor
Produced by Eva Verity, Tina Fance, Elina Kukkonen, Kiera O’Brien, Annelise Prodor, Melika Ramic, Moona Tikka, Victoria Godden
Technical direction & environment design by Katelan Braymer
Sound design by Kristian Ekholm
Translations by Laura Liimatainen, Essi Brunberg
So to this day I appreciate when someone can give honest information about the topic, because for me just about the only source outside the family was the book Where Did I Come From? (surely a bible of sorts for many kids of rural Australia) which at least explains basic heterosexual biology and potential outcomes when bodies are arranged in certain formations. Another manual was John Marsden's Secret Men's Business, which explains things that are otherwise only referred to in the schoolyard through innuendo or hinted at in certain TV sitcoms. In both cases, what I appreciated was the directness, which, though it seems simple, may actually be difficult or embarrassing to achieve.
All the Sex I Ever Had is 6 seniors sitting at a desk and talking directly to the audience about their sex histories. Beginning at the birth of the eldest (for us in the Espoon kaupunginteatteri in Espoo, Helsinki, it was 1932), the history is chronologically recited as experiences happen. After the eldest, the other 5 slowly enter the picture, often following the first in their (fairly diverse) life experiences. Our actors (selected from the local population, I assume with diversity, excitement, and dramatic weight of their narratives in mind) masturbate, fall in love, break up, marry, and just fuck their way through kitchen tables, hotel rooms, nightclubs, family holidays, and boats. Every 10 years, the readers are interrupted by a dance-break with the cheesiest music that can be found in that period, which also plays gently in the background (as kind of a 'smoother') as they relate their stories.
Photo: Singapore Arts Festival performance of All the Sex I Ever Had
From the opening pledge which the audience takes not to reveal any of the information outside the theatre, there's immediately a sense of stripping back a lot of these covers, and attempting to directly address the audience in a type of communication that isn't possible outside the theatre. This creates some interesting moments, and when the mics are given to the audience, and it's our turn to answer the questions (which range from the innocent 'did anyone ever play doctors and nurses' to the more real-world 'did anyone sleep with a married person?').
Despite appearing to be non-theatrical, there's a distinct dramaturgical hand at play, which becomes particularly important when dealing with a moment of tragedy. Sex isn't always a happy subject, especially when consent is obviously not present. It would have been a lie to edit out these stories, and in All the Sex I Ever Had they sit as painful counter-balances to the pleasure of sharing, often plunging the audience into quite deep emotional territory quite quickly. The dramaturgical structure offers some fallbacks for this - as do the cast's support of each other, which, whilst it cannot help but feel staged, nevertheless offers some sense of safety for performers and audience. These moments tend to be the most tender and memorable, as violence interrupts the consensus of the room.
It's not the only point that's surprising about the show, which also contains enough heavy death metaphors that would make even Freud happy. For starters, the structure of the show itself is a march through time to its inevitable conclusion, which tinges every story with a sense of foreboding. The stories themselves have a kind of 'three-prong' structure: set-up, punchline, and then a kind of suggestive, poetic aftermath. (So, a fictional example might be 'I was in love with Michael. We held hands for 10 minutes each day as we waited for the school bus. His hands gave me a feeling that I could do anything'). There's also the effect of viewing someone's life from the perspective of sex, which provides something of a neat metaphor for life itself - the presumption that sex (and death) actually pervades every aspect of our lives.
It's the kind of show that has festivals drooling - and indeed, its premier from Canadian-German company Mammalian Diving Reflex was in 2012, so now the format is 6 years old and has toured to many global cities. Undoubtedly it's a celebration of the liberalism of sex, and it probably depends on your politics to what extent you accept this as revolutionary. I couldn't help but think that it's a show that preaches to the choir - those who would accept its messages have already attained quite accepting and open attitudes to the subject. The Finnish audience in Espoo was a good example, where, in the cities at least, tolerance of sexual difference can be pretty cutting-edge. Radical sexual liberationists won't be happy, though, by some of the gendering that is present from the outset, with an enthusiasm for the binary that is probably comprehensible to an audience but expedient rather than educational, and stigmas inevitably appearing (for example, when men talk about masturbation there's laughter, when women talk about it, for some reason, there's an uncomfortable silence).
But aside from this, as a purely communal experience, the format remains a valuable sort of catharsis and learning, the kind of experience that's actually quite rare inside and outside the theatre today.
All the Sex I Ever Had
Espoon kaupunginteatteri (Espoo City Theatre)
Conceived by Darren O’Donnell
Direction by Melika Ramic & Annalise Prodor
Produced by Eva Verity, Tina Fance, Elina Kukkonen, Kiera O’Brien, Annelise Prodor, Melika Ramic, Moona Tikka, Victoria Godden
Technical direction & environment design by Katelan Braymer
Sound design by Kristian Ekholm
Translations by Laura Liimatainen, Essi Brunberg
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