Theater Review: Safeword Asks If You Want Love or Control
Sex, violence, and food all seem to intertwine in Safeword, playing at American Theater of Actors, to make us question how we love. Following four neighbors, S. Asher Gelman’s play makes you ponder how we let people love us connects to how we love ourselves. The result is a two hour play, with intermission, that pushes its characters through their emotional bondages more than their physical.
I am sure that some audience members were either enthralled or revolted by BDSM, especially because the play does well in showing this is a world that thrives more on power dynamics than whips an chains. Yes, you see characters like, Micah (Joe Chisolm) get whipped and told to lick Xavier/ X’s boots, but you also see that this character, like others, struggle in balancing control over his life, especially his relationships. Chisolm plays Micah like a volcano that solely erupts when he is bound. Yet, his “eruption” comes at the opportunity to have someone “stronger” than him tell him what to do, which is why his desire to not see his wife in such a role is problematic.
Traci Elaine Lee plays Lauren: Micah’s wife and Chris’ friend/ neighbor. Lee makes Lauren loving and eager to understand the withdrawing, growing iciness of her man. Yet, in discovering his BDSM likes, she, inadvertently, discovers what he dislikes/ desires from her: a wife. Lauren represents the talented, smart woman that seconds herself to her man, which he both wants and “not wants.” Micah desires to be dominated by another, other than his wife; refusing to let her take the reigns or be, at least, an occasional boss in both their marriage and their restaurant. Micah and Lauren’s coupledom of secrets and attached strings is used to contrast ideas of a “hetero, perfect marriage” to Xavier “X” (Jimmy Woods) and Chris (Maybe Burke) more noble, genuine relationship.
From the very beginning, Chris and Xavier defy classic, “conventional” couple norms. Chris is a trans-femme nurse that is incredibly sweet, kind, and Xavier is a male dominatrix or “Sir”/ “Master,” as some submissives like to call him. Woods plays Xavier as someone that wants true love, but does not know how to achieve it. For however much he can chain others to submit to his will, he cannot seem to rise to his own desires, which, oddly, explains why he ended up in the BDSM world. It is more than a place for “kinky sex,” it can also be seen as a seedy manifestation that clashes with what society defines as “romantic” and genuine. Hence, Chris’ entrance into his life feels “life-saving;” finally, Xavier has someone that is a good heart seeking to connect to his own. Gelman’s direction and writing is potently specific in trying to bash what we think is a “healthy” or “honorable” relationship.
Do you want love or control? That seems to be the permeating question throughout Safeword, which can be seen even in its gorgeous scenic design, by Ann Beyersdorfer, and lighting by Jamie Roderic. Gelman’s newest work analyzes the true reasons for which we enter a relationship and the secrets we build to protect it. This allows him to build both a suspense and a self-reflection within audiences that pushes them to discuss who has the truer bond: Micah and Lauren or Chris and Xavier? To Buy Tickets Click Here. Safeword plays at till July 7. American Theatre of Actors is located at 314 West 54th Street.
