“What I offer is extreme intimacy,” says the young woman sitting inches away from me on a bed in an Edinburgh tenement and staring into my eyes. Beside me is a complete stranger, and we are the only two audience members in the aptly named Menage, which, like Hula House, offers an encounter with a sex worker in a secret location on the fringe. But this piece has a more sophisticated theatrical framing.
Like Hula House, Menage aims not merely to offer a voyeuristic experience, but to shatter myths about sex workers and raise awareness about working conditions, and the way that the attitudes of police and local councils put women sex-industry workers at risk. An actor (Claire-Maria Fox at the performance I attended) plays the young woman telling us about her life in detail, but we also hear the taped voice of a real sex worker, who explains the detrimental effect of a crackdown on Edinburgh saunas on her life and on her fellow workers.
In its opening moments, Menage wittily scuppers misconceptions concerning sex workers, not least that they were all abused as children or trafficked. For some women, like this protagonist, being a sex worker is a choice. Some women become hairdressers, offering a service that makes people feel better about themselves; what this woman offers is intimacy. Often, the work has very little to do with sex and a great deal to do with giving full attention to someone who feels lonely and unloved.
Which is why this show works well – marrying content and form to play deliberately on the intimacy of the theatrical experience. It may be a variation of an old story, but it’s one worth repeating – with a brave and vivid performance by Fox.
• At Underbelly (off-site), Edinburgh, until 30 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000.
