Dance Naked Productions’ Inviting Desire takes as its
starting point the idea that, while theater strives to induce a variety
of reactions in its audience, sexual arousal is rarely one of them. And
why not?
The response to that question might be, of course, that it’s not
terribly challenging to incite lust in an audience, and in fact
Portland allegedly has more establishments per capita devoted to doing
just that than any other city in the country.
What sets the ensemble piece Inviting Desire apart from the
entertainment offered at Mary’s Club, though, is that while Inviting
Desire does explicitly aim to arouse its audience, it couples
traditional titillations (sexy lingerie, sexy dancing, sexy boob
touching) with disarmingly blunt expressions of female sexuality.
Hostess Eleanor O’Brien leads the audience through a sort of sexy show
and tell, as ensemble members take turns “describing” their fantasies.
(While the ensemble wrote most of the work in the show, not every piece
is performed by its author.) A commendably broad array of imaginings is
presented here, from a relatively wholesome yoga orgy scene to a
decidedly un-wholesome Minotaur rape fantasy. Some of the scenes are
even more politically incorrect: a teacher imagines seducing a student;
a white housewife has an Obama jungle fantasy. The question is raised,
though not explored in much depth, of whether fantasies can be
dangerous—whether it’s acceptable for an adult woman to fantasize
about fucking a teenager, for example. One wishes for a more in-depth
exploration of these ideas, but then such discussion might be too heady
for what is ultimately an extraordinarily visceral production.
The show runs a bit long, and not every scene works: A jokey bit
about a “Vampires Anonymous” meeting feels distinctly less honest than
the rest of the show, while a womyn-on-womyn dance number depicting the
mating dance of two Lilith Fair lesbians (the unforgivable phrase
“pussy of the earth” is used) is unintentionally hilarious. When the
show works, though, it’s riveting—whether it’s a lesbian
describing her fantasy of dressing like a boy and being picked up by a
gay man, or ensemble member Tonya Jone Miller dropping her clothes to
show a body covered with S&M scars, Inviting Desire is
unlike anything else you’ll see on a Portland stage—Mary’s Club
included.
ALISON HALLETT