“In married life,” says Oscar Wilde’s Algernon, “three is company and two is none.” The Chicago-based Laura Jacqmin takes this literally by showing a young couple, Allison and Paul, engaging first a man and then a woman to spice up their marital sex. What follows is a risque, rueful comedy that suggests there is no sensual gain without emotional pain.
The humour derives from the attempt to impose a strict Emily Post-style etiquette on the sexual impulse. Among the formal rules drawn up by Allison and Paul are that there is to be no physical penetration by the guest and no post-coital socialising.
Inevitably, it proves difficult to stick to the code when the selected partners not only make extracurricular demands, but expose the neediness of their hosts. Once you get the basic idea, the various permutations and combinations become a touch predictable. While Jacqmin captures the weirdness of regulated threesomes, she never matches the psychological desperation of Pinter’s The Lover in portraying the dangerous games married couples play.
Although the sex is kept offstage, Josh Roche’s well-mounted production achieves a voyeuristic intimacy. Taking place on the same living-room set as the Finborough’s concurrent Alpha Beta, the action erupts among a startled audience. Given our proximity, the four actors – Asha Reid and Jeremy Legat as the young marrieds, Will Alexander and Lucy Roslyn as their new partners – perform with a commendable lack of inhibition.
There are also some genuinely funny moments, as when the four of them, lacking a pack of cards, play Strip Harry Potter Trivia. But the final impression left by Jacqmin’s play is of the sadness of a sex-obsessed American culture.
• At the Finborough, London, until 20 July. Box office: 0844 847 1652.
