Dave Harris's new play Tender, now running at the Soho Theatre, takes audiences into the world of a down-at-heel strip club in New Jersey. Directed by Matthew Xia with swagger and finesse, the production explores themes of modern masculinity, sex, pleasure, and parenthood.
The Dancing Bears club features two young dancers and a non-dancing father figure, all struggling to attract customers in the face of competition from rival performers. When dancer Geoff suffers an onstage panic attack, B, the daughter of the club's mysterious owner, steps in to help. Played by Jessie Mei Li, B employs dubious therapy techniques to break down the men and restore their confidence.
Harris, known for his earlier work Tambo & Bones, continues to examine identity as commodity, here using the pornographic show business as a lens. While the writing occasionally repeats similar arguments, Matthew Xia's direction, combined with Ciarán Cunningham's lighting and Shelley Maxwell's choreography, brings depth to the performances. The cast includes Dex Lee as Geoff, Darren Bennett as the grizzly dad, and Kwami Odoom, who portrays a dancer baffled by questions about his own enjoyment of sex.
The play poses deeper questions about what it means to meet an audience's desires and tap into one's own wellsprings of pleasure, moving beyond the superficiality of the strip club setting.
