Dave Harris’ Tender is, I suppose, a drama about how hard it is to be a man. But don’t worry, you can put the pepper spray away: we are so far away from incel territory here that we might as well be talking about a different species.
The US playwright’s latest is directed by Matthew Xia, the Brit director who did such a spectacularly good job directing Harris’ batshit time-travelling drama Tambo & Bones that the posters for Tender actively bill this as a reunion between the two.
It is not as mad as Tambo & Bones, because Tambo & Bones ended in a dystopian race-war future filled with silly robots and Tender doesn’t. But it does, again, speak to the sheer scope of Harris’ imagination, and Xia’s ability to articulate his out-there ideas on a modest budget.
The setting is a New Jersey strip club in which the female clientele and the male strippers are allowed to engage in actual sex acts due to a convoluted legal loophole identified some years ago by the club’s unseen owner, Margie. A team of three guys – Trae (Kwame Odoom), Geoff (Dex Lee), and Donny (Darren Bennett) – have been performing the same routine (which involves teddy bear costumes) for years now.
But far from being growling studs, revelling in their respective masculinities, the men are a mess: the play begins with a long monologue from Trae – half dressed as a bear – who reflects mournfully, at length and with reference to the cult Manga Sailor Moon on his lack of pleasure from sex these days. More pressingly, a new club called Bulls has opened round the corner, and their strippers can dance better and have bigger dicks – something that’s giving the superficially suave Geoff panic attacks.
Cue the arrival of B (Jessie Mei Li), Margie’s daughter. She has a ferociously severe bob, a great line in boiler suits, and zero experience running a strip club. Nonetheless, her mum has temporarily shut the operation down and sent B down to come up with a new show – something she sets about doing with a hilarious lack of sympathy as she impassively watches their old routine, before telling Geoff ‘you are not a man’ and attempting to brutally therapise the group into devising a follow up.
There is a cheesier, more sentimental version of Tender that probably runs something like ‘B inspires the man to give their strip show an intersectional makeover, it’s a huge success!!!’
Harris is really too weird for that, although he’s big-hearted enough about his characters to leave open the distant possibility of the new show being a hit. But really that’s not the point. Tender is a story about the pressure of being a man as a sexual being; not in a woe-is-me way but as in ‘these are pressures on men that aren’t often discussed’. For Trae, in particular, it comes down to the view that the man’s role ends at getting hard when required. For the other guys… it’s even more complicated. And then there’s B, whose own sexuality – or lack thereof – is amusingly other.
With the men, Harris is clearly trying to discuss some of the taboos that underpin conventional male sexuality. With B, it’s more confusing. She is a sort of agent of ambiguously woke chaos whose role sometimes feels like it has more to say on nepo-job appointments in American public life than it does about her as a representative of her sex.
Xia’s production is very entertaining indeed. The male cast are all such solid actors that it’s almost a shock to discover they’re all jacked and stacked too, and while the production doesn’t pile it on there are a handful of moments of genuinely breathtaking athleticism. There’s also some nice audience interaction that’s modestly outrageous but also thoughtfully done: if you want to get involved with the show, book for the front row or one of the onstage seats. If you don’t want a crotch in your face, maybe steer clear (although the means to say ‘no’ to the cast’s attention is provided).
It’s unbalanced. The men are relatable. B is not, which makes it harder for Mei Li to inhabit her convincingly – she spends a lot of her time defaulting to the same arsenal of glowers and eyerolls. She’s a fine, weird catalyst for the action. But would the drama really not have worked if the one woman was as plausible a character as the men?
To be honest: maybe not. Harris’ exuberantly uninhibited storytelling style does require some trade offs in terms of characterisation. But give me this thoughtful madness over the kitchen sink equivalent any day.
