Review: JERKER, Waterloo East

An early tableau in Robert Chesley’s 1986 play Jerker involves a character masturbating to a generic message on his answering machine. It’s not the last masturbation scene in the play – which was once the subject of an obscenity-related censorship attempt on Californian radio – nor is it the last time we’ll see a scene of sexuality defined by separation and anonymity.

Our central dynamic here is a “long-term relationship between strangers”, as one character describes it, both intimate and distant. In 1980s San Francisco, Bert (James Lee) and JR (Paul Dennison) are two men engaging in nightly phone sex, who have only ever met briefly in person.

The only thing clear, at least initially, between Bert and JR is their sexual power dynamics – their initial awkwardness, and then the elaborate, mildly incestuous fantasy they create for one another. Chesley is ambitious in how he writes ordinary conversation; some of the men’s descriptions of their fantasies border on magical realism.

Despite seeing them in a state of undress for most of the show, the audience knows as little about these men’s lives as they themselves do about each other; it’s never clear how much or how little of the confidence they display on the phone is just for show. Revelations about their backgrounds and lives outside the bedroom are dripfed, cloaked in innuendo and ambiguity.

The effect is compounded by the set design, which resists any mark of the play’s period setting in favour of two sterile, blandly decorated bedrooms, devoid of anything that might give too much away. We have been invited in on these men’s inner lives, but at a distance.

Bert and JR’s phone sex eventually gives way to friendship and tentative romance, marked by their shared experiences as witnesses to the developing Aids crisis. Chesley’s language here is highly physical, confronting stigma with the same unflinching realism as in his earlier scenes of sexual fantasy.

Lee and Dennison have an easy chemistry, tender but not overfamiliar, giving their characters space to open up to one another, albeit sparingly. One of these scenes gives rise to a monologue delivered by Lee that shows striking foresight for 1986 about how Aids would change public perceptions of queer communities, as well as remembrance both poignant and joyous for the lives lost.

But the show loses its footing when managing its shifts in emotion. Director Henry Adams punctuates scenes with blasts of 1980s pop hits, which adds unnecessary speed to the development of Bert and JR’s relationship, and denies the actors breathing room for their characters. The play’s conclusion, a direct confrontation with illness and death, ought to feel raw and all too naturalistic, but with the uneven pacing that has come before, it tips into melodrama.

Still, this is a chance to see an overlooked gem on the occasion of its 40th anniversary – Chesley died from Aids complications in 1990, Jerker was not performed in his lifetime and is rarely revived. It’s delicately handled, and observational without being voyeuristic, an imperfect paean to a moment in queer history.

Jerker plays at Waterloo East Theatre until 18 October

Reader Reviews

To post a comment, you must register and login.