Infidelity Weekend

It's not as risque as it sounds but it had its moments.

The infidelity highlights are Orange Flower Water and A Walk on the Moon .

OFW is a shortish full length play by one of the writers from Six Feet Under , Craig Wright. 2 couples, 1 from each get together for an affair. Very soon it comes out and fancy that, there's aftermath. You can see why the people at 6 Feet like him because he's got a beautiful sense of how to build intensity and just the right point at which to break it with humor so you can do it again. The play has 3 or 4 wonderful moments of painful, perfect reality. I suspect that Wright wrote those and then had to figure out a way to string them together because the premise around which these moments revolve doesn't feel fully earned. All of it, however, is exquisitely acted.

And this is where the risque part comes in. There is a 20 minute scene of intense and important dialogue that all takes place around the foreplay, intercourse and completion between 2 characters. It's beautifully done and with very little tweaking would be an exquisite short play all on its own. We're in a modern age, we've all seen sex done and done and done in every medium, and yet, this was possibly the most disturbing theatre sex experience I've ever had...well watched at least. The theatre is very small, audience on 3 sides and the bed is the central set piece and takes up easily 2/3 of the stage space. The 2 actors start fully clothed and end up with the woman in what we're to believe is just a diaphanous nightgown, we do see her remove her underwear, and the man is full monty. I guess that the disturbing bit is because I'm an actress and couldn't help wondering how I'd feel if it were me acting it. I mean, if you're rubbing all the right parts against each other how can you not get a little rise out of the guy? Even if it's not being used. And how uncomfortable is that in a blocking rehearsal? Beyond that the smallest touches were all there from the actors, some obvious and some not. The one that stays in my head is the way he touched her feet. She is sitting astride him, rocking back and forth and talking to him and he would reach down and grab her feet around the arch, rubbing the soles. I've never come across that before but it struck me as so wonderfully intimate and indicative of the long relationship the characters were meant to have had. I can't stop thinking about it.

A Walk on the Moon is a movie endorsed wholeheartedly by Viggo Mortensen lovers everywhere. It is a stunningly accurate portrait of an upstate New York family summer campground in the late 60s. We're shown the slow beginnings of the blending of the strait-laced 1950s and the far more liberal 1960s. Diane Lane and Viggo are delicious together. How could anyone resist naked, wet Viggo making love under a waterfall? Delightful and fun and gorgeous. Sigh.

Oh yeah, and I watched a few episodes of Queer as Folk (US) , too. Lots of naked people this weekend. May next weekend be so good.