Play Review: NSFW by Lucy Kirkwood

Image found here: http://www.roundhousetheatre.org/performances/nsfw/

Last week I saw tickets on Goldstar for the show NSFW, which was at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda. Since the tickets were cheap and I could walk to the venue, I made an impulse purchase and bought one ticket to see the play on my own.

At first, I was supposed to sit in the VERY front row. It's a small theater, so I would have been essentially face-to-face with the actors. Luckily I was able to switch my seat to somewhere further away, where I could still see the show. The stage was set up like the inside of a nudey men's magazine office. There were topless photos EVERYWHERE (hence the title of the play), and the show starts with the the staff of a the magazine (played by Laura C. Harris, Danny Gavigan, Brandon McCoy, and James Whalen as the boss) goofing around and chit-chatting; all of them are quite funny and good actors. This unfortunately was really the only enjoyable part of the play.

Things soon get serious, and the play gets sadder as you go on.

1. The magazine wants to do a story about one of their staff member's proposal to his girlfriend. This is obviously very personal, and he doesn't want to do it (which ends up being a moot point since you find out later that they broke up), and he's getting ganged-up on by his peers/boss.

2. The magazine gets in trouble for publishing a photo of a topless girl who is only 14 years old. She doesn't look 14, but you find out that her boyfriend faked her age and consent forms. Her father comes into the office, and he and the editor in chief of the magazine talk, going back and forth about law suits, money settlements, etc. This scene takes FAR too long, and Todd Scofield who plays the father is a meh actor, and I just was glad when he was finally off the stage.

3. The scene changes to a women's magazine, where you met their own editor in chief (played by Deborah Hazlett), who insists that every woman has flaws (she being a woman herself). She's interviewing Sam (McCoy), who used to work at the men's magazine. This is after his pathetic break-up, so he's not at his best, and his future boss is just picking on him the whole time. It was very uncomfortable to watch (which I guess was the point?), but then I was no longer enjoying the performance.

4. After Sam leaves, we see this female boss getting ready in her office for a night out, where she has a hidden closet of lotions, make-up, Spanx, etc. She's a bitter, older woman trying to stay hot in a young woman's world, and it's just sad. And then the play abruptly ends, with no real plot line nor closure.

So, what was the point? I know there's supposed to be a message about the misogyny of men and the pressures women face due to the media, but...no lessons were learned. Nothing changed. Kirkwood is making a statement about society that is already obvious: why bother to write a play about it? The play doesn't change anything, and has no impact on society whatsoever (the show can't even sell tickets; why do you think I found it on Goldstar in the first place?).

Luckily the play was quite short (less than two hours long), so I didn't waste that much of my life on it. The sexy title hides the seriousness and misery of this little play; don't be fooled!