Mark O’Halloran’s script of post-coital meditations and chatter has flashes of promise and insight but despite some daring choices, Jess Edwards’ London production manages to drift and feels anything but edgy.
There is something rather old-fashioned, bordering on judgemental in O’Halloran’s writing that suggests the casual hook-ups of She (Olivia Lindsay) must be rooted in a kind of pathology or at least malaise. Lindsay’s nameless single everywoman acts poised and nonchalant but masks an insecurity that feels a great distance from abandonment. Despite the presence of many a comely man (all played by Julian Moore-Cook), we observe little heat or hedonism. Yes, this is a talky play (the clue is in the title), but it’s not a play of ideas and although the wit drifts in and out, it is not especially catchy. Somewhat predictably, the grass is always greener, and She’s sister, F (Jo Herbert), who drops by every now and again, is married and has known just three sexual partners in her life. She ripostes that she’s had three men in an afternoon. Neither seems particularly jolly for either of their situations, nor especially curious about the lives of the other.
All the actors are capable to a professional London stage level, but Julian Moore-Cook could have done with a dialect coach for this show. His series of roles require considerable range for us to know – without costume change or significantly different mannerisms (given he’s basically in the same bed with the same woman in the same clothes in consecutive scenes) – that he is playing different characters. A tuned ear can discern the northern from the southern Irish accents laid side-by-side and we more or less take his word for it when the dialogue exposition announces his third role is a Brazilian geo-technical engineer now working as a cleaner, but after that the lover rota goes a bit aurally indistinct (and it’s hard to know which one has returned). Perhaps to some extent, that’s the point and yet the script is smarter and more subtle than to lead us to a singular masculine archetype. It has moments of truth and humour as genuine intimacy and companionship emerges – almost despite itself – from wilfully insouciant casual sex.
As a one-act, Conversations After Sex is played mostly for drama – with a heavy score (by Xana) punctuating scene changes and Lindsay radiating a ‘cooler-than-thou’ distance of She’s repression dressed as decadence. With two more weeks in the run, I wonder if it could lean more into a bigger-stage theatricality and a little less away from a smaller-screen/camera-style acting tone. There is some broad comedy within the script and, given the play-acting of these encounters, I’d like to see She embody a wider range of emotional energy both of her own character and reactions; it would make her evolution and the play’s questions about ‘just where do love and connection intersect with lust and friends-with-benefits status?’ more dynamic and less a study of functional depression.
Review by Mary Beer
‘And now. Here I am. On the other side of the world. At this crazy hour. In a stranger’s bed. And I’m happy now. I think so anyway.’
Unexpected encounters, anonymous strangers in hotel rooms, unguarded intimacy. When a woman in full possession of her sexuality meets a carousel of different men, she finds herself uncovering more than she expected. Mark O’Halloran’s startling, award-winning play Conversations After Sex explores the nature of grief, loneliness and promiscuity to show us how intimacy can unlock unforeseen connections.
She – Olivia Lindsay
Male Roles – Julian Moore-Cook
F – Jo Herbert
Writer – Mark O’Halloran
Director – Jess Edwards
Producer – Ye You Productions
Lighting Designer – Bethany Gupwell
Stage Manager and Technical Operator – James Christensen
Sound Designer and Composer – Xana
Set and Costume Designer – Georgia Wilmot
Production Manager – Carrie Croft
CONVERSATIONS AFTER SEX
Park90, Park Theatre
30 April to 17 May 2025
