Beautiful Man: what if men were sexually objectified?
10 May 2019

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Joseph Michael Photography

Three geeky, but well-dressed, guys sit on stools and discuss a television show they have all seen. They talk over each other and enthuse in particular about the nudity as well as the strength of the main character. The twist is that the guys are gals and the television show is gender reversed from our unfortunate norm. Instead of breasts and full frontal vaginas, they talk casually about the relative merits of penises and boners. And wring lots of rueful laughs out of a woman getting the same leeway that a male protagonist gets.

The satire goes beyond the casual sexism and exploitation that television, and society, is full of, and expands to the question of women's roles. The secondary characters - the husbands, the naked extras, the boyfriends - are all lampooned and when seen in a role reversal framework, the plight of a working actress is acutely depicted. The gals ask, "What's his name?" and praise the ability to act without having any lines. A clever nesting doll/Scherezade structure takes the spoofy analysis from gritty detective dramas to Game of Thrones to I Love Lucy to puppet shows. 

While the three women have their discussion, a giant television set/black box perches behind them. Inside it is Jesse LaVercombe (Bunny, Hamlet) who embodies, hilariously, the men they are critiquing and admiring. He is the sex object, the ignored, and eventually the nude. The women - Ashley Botting, Mayko Nguyen (Salt-Water Moon) and Sofia Rodriguez - are unaware of his presence and so immersed in their opinions and ribaldry that even if they were cognizant, it would matter little to them. But it matters to the audience and there is considerable suspense as to how naked LaVercombe will get.

That vulnerability is then transposed into a chance for LaVercombe to shine, a twist that shouldn't be revealed. But because the three women and playwright Erin Shields have set us up so well, the gender reversal packs a potent and disturbing punch. And LaVercombe proves, as most actresses long to do, that he is more than a sex object. And his moment in the spotlight accentuates just what fine work Botting, Nguyen and Rodriguez have done. They are casual masculine parodies, hilariously crass and have the audience riveted with just the power of their voices and minimal gestures. 

While LaVercombe is literally and metaphorically trapped in his box, the women are given some minimal movements by director Andrea Donaldson or their own need to move. Botting appears to possibly be at the gym and Rodriguez vibrates atop her stilettos. All three are compelling enough that they could just sit and chat and lacerate with the words, leaving LaVercombe to be the sex object and sight gag (the puppet show gag is a particularly uproarious and metaphorically apt one). 

Before Beautiful Man begins the audience is warned that there will be "explicit language. Very explicit language. Very fucking explicit language." Though there was a couple who walked out during some raunchy talk, Shields could have gone further: men, and women, talk much more coarsely and crudely. But that could also be my perspective, as a gay man (and Beautiful Man is resolutely heterosexually oriented), the idea of objectifying males is not a shocking or alien concept. I see it, and do it, all the time. It is impossible not to do it to LaVercombe within this review.

Which led to an interesting conundrum. Leaving the theatre, I found myself walking behind two younger and physically smaller women. Out of respect, and suddenly aware that I could appear threatening, another gender disparity that Beautiful Man upends and illuminates, I dropped back and actually pondered the tragedy of the distance between our perceptions. Beautiful Man had had more of an effect that I had noticed while in the midst of it.

I suspect that the effect was so subtle because most of Beautiful Man is very funny. I must note here that I attended a preview so all the lines may not have had time to settle, but I laughed uproariously when the women discussed "I hear he has a boner double" and gratuitous BDSM-flavoured scifi nudity. And when the #MeToo movement and ageism is gender reversed, especially when the three try to justify it and their privilege, Beautiful Man transcends and vivisects with farcical feminist fury. The laughs stick in the throat because they hit home so sharply. And the ultimate disturbing gag is that we are lured in by the tantalizing prospect of LaVercombe's full-frontal glory, to revel in what Beautiful Man specifically critiques.