John Cooper’s new play sets out courageously to question capitalism, communism, society, morality and everything in between.
A suburban English household is disrupted by the arrival of Sorin, the victim of an unnamed Eastern European communist state who has reinvented himself as an amoral capitalist. Sorin’s experience has taught him that life is really just about survival and his outlook proves seductive to husband and wife Chris and Marie. A teacher and doctor respectively, they are struggling in worthy jobs without recognition or reward and having to deal with an increasingly unappreciative public.
To add insult to injury, Billy, their 19-year-old daughter’s musician boyfriend, demonstrates the slacker mentality of the next generation, who are happy to sponge off their parents rather than face up to the tough realities of the world. It is not surprising that Chris seeks after-school solace in the arms of a Romanian lapdancer.
After a while Chris and Marie start to realise just what a dark, lonely place Sorin’s head is but the play still manages to embrace his philosophy with a disappointingly implausible ending and the confused suggestion that they have somehow discovered a new way of living through him, when they really haven’t.
It is also a shame we don’t hear more from the poor lapdancer of the title, played cheekily by Kate Steavenson-Payne, who just seems good-humouredly upbeat about stripping and sleeping with strangers.
Luckily Yvonne Fisher’s good-looking design and Harry Meacher’s excellent performance as the silken-tongued Sorin make the production ultimately watchable, despite the confusion.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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