Jon is an acclaimed novelist, a charismatic university professor, and a middle-aged man staring down the end of his third marriage. Enter Annie - nineteen years old, a star student and a huge fan of Jon’s work. An undeniable attraction draws them into dangerous territory. With Ella Beatty and Hugh Jackman, the US premiere of award-winning playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes takes us down the most slippery of slopes and will have you questioning your perspective throughout.
The ensuing affair, complete with liaisons in cheap hotel rooms and the inside of Jon’s car, proves predictable in its complications, feeling very much like any number of dramas revolving around imbalanced sexual relationships. It’s only as the play progresses that it becomes something more original and interesting, with the power dynamics and eventually even the perspective shifting. That the playwright is a woman telling the tale from a man’s point of view provides a clue as to what makes Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes so distinctive, if not particularly weighty.
For an audience no less than an individual, the steep slope of powerful attraction is difficult to negotiate. Neither Macklem nor Annie (she’s given no last name) is sure-footed. He’s an overinflated balloon, blowing himself through life. She’s, well, 19. Beyond any other consideration — attraction, power, psychology, class — her absolute age, not the gap in their ages, is what Moscovitch wants us to consider. Annie is not yet a fully grown human; she barely has the emotional wherewithal to handle her impulses, to know which ones she can safely indulge.
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
Videos