An immersive play where the audience are told they are being invited into a brothel is championing the cause of decriminalising sex work at the Edinburgh festival fringe.
Hula House, developed by the theatre company Permanently Visible, is performed in a flat in Edinburgh. Gathering 15 members of the public into the intimate living room space, two sex workers – played by the show’s creators, Jenny Kondol and Sarah Xanthe – reveal stories of how they became involved in the sex industry.
The women play sexually provocative games with the audience, challenging them to confront their perceptions of those who do sex work and the reasons behind those perceptions.
The site-specific show was developed in conjunction with the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), a campaign group for sex workers. Kondol and Xanthe worked with several women involved in the group to hear their stories and develop a piece reflective of genuine experience. At various points in the performance, audio of interviews with sex workers talking about their lives is played out in the small space.
“Our theatre company ethos is to speak up for those who have a silent voice, particularly women, and so exploring sex work just made sense for us,” said Kondol. “Then the more we delved into it, the more we realised it was something that we need to speak up about and show people that actually there’s a whole host of very normal people who are having to resort to this line of work as a means to an end.”
The pair first ran the show past the women in the ECP to get their approval of the finished work. When the show transfers to London in September, as part of the Camden People’s Theatre festival of feminism, it will take place in the Crossroads Women’s Centre in Kentish Town, where the collective is based.
It is estimated there are between 60,000 and 100,000 sex workers in the UK. Prostitution is not illegal, but soliciting, kerb crawling, owning a brothel and pimping are all against UK law. Kondol said that by keeping the industry stigmatised and behind closed doors, the women involved would remain vulnerable and at risk.
Bringing the audience into the confrontational space of the brothel, added Kondol, forced people to directly confront the reality of the lives of sex workers, many of whom found themselves trapped in the industry out of economic necessity.
As part of the performance, Kondol and Xanthe play two young sex workers who met at university and turned to prostitution to pay off student debts and support a young family. The show begins with the pair asking the audience to raise their hands in response to a series of personal questions, including whether they have ever visited a brothel and paid for sex. The audience also see Xanthe tied up on a bed.
The flat where the play takes place is owned by Kondol’s father, and as part of the performance he walks the audience to the space and stands guard at the door as a safety measure.
“People need to realise what’s going on and that decriminalisation is essential for the safety of the women,” said Kondol. “This isn’t a black and white issue of right and wrong and so by bringing audiences directly into our space they get a taste of what the lives of sex workers are really like. It’s about saying: ‘If you take a closer look at yourself, you’re not as different from these women as you might like to believe.’”
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