Skintight: A Canterburian Paradise

The lights dim. A pair of feet hide behind a curtain; to your mind trembling, but only because if they were yours they would be. A young woman, slender of build, walks on to the gym mats. Playing with an apple and a bucket of water, she seems peaceful, Eve-like in her simple dress and ruffled hair. Content, that is, until a man strides in, his breeches screaming the 1940’s and his rugged look marking him Adam to her Eve. It is upon his arrival that you realize what the gym mats are for. Lunging towards his lover in violent abandon, this first act encapsulates so much of what this play symbolizes: a fighting eroticism that is as romantically passionate as it is shockingly abusive, showcasing a violence that is well directed enough to not speak of anything but love.



The play itself is very simple: two people, a bucket of water, some apples, a knife. Even the clothes are discarded at one point (a fact which, although poignant and altogether fitting, is still shocking when you’re in the front row). A play evoking nostalgia for days gone by, its poetic pronunciations by the actors are perfectly Kiwi and well spoken. The actors speak much of rolling around in the haystack and other hillbilly-esque activities, of riding horses and pure, sweet innocent love. The story carries an aura of nature and simplicity.

Simple, that is, until the war is mentioned. With the war, aptly introduced as the marker of a bad turn in the actor’s Eden-esque Canterburian paradise, come tales of adultery and of lack of faith in one another. Of course, tales of death and destruction within the war setting are mentioned. Running arguments between  the actors, Croft and Neels, become almost thematic of the play; the fact that an argument is almost always present increases the tension between them and thus your interest in them as characters. It also keeps the question alive as to whether they will forgive each other for their latest trespasses,  which, almost immediately, they always do. Although it may seem frivolous and unrealistic for the characters to make up so easily, the argumentative thread ensures they never really do make up. In addition to their potent chemistry on stage, you come to accept their forgiving nature as part of what makes them husband and wife. So forgiving, in fact, you wonder whether the relationship has been carried on off-stage.

Amid the blissful violence, there is one point of confusion. Throughout the first three quarters of the play, they appear to be a young married couple, perhaps separated for a few years by the war. Played by actors that look like teenagers, it is rather a surprise when they allude to a grown daughter figure that lives overseas, which effectively makes them grandparents. This demographic surprise does not take away from the beauty of the whole, but it does distance your mind from some of the play’s climactic graces, as it is mentioned in the last and most dramatic third of the play.

The passionate scene involving a large event at the end (which I will keep a surprise for you), however, quickly takes your mind hostage from these particulars. After a few hand-to-mouth episodes, you are quickly whisked away to a peaceful and rather cleverly designed conclusion which prompts afterthought. I must say that, overall,  I was rather delighted with the whole experience.

To summarize, Skintight is not a play for the faint-hearted, the unromantic, or those disgusted by nudity. But for those who do not fall underneath these categories, it is a well-directed, poetic, and indeed well worth seeing peace of theatre.

Skintight. Dir. Melissa Ferguson, Starring Julia Croft and Chris Neels. Dur: 1 hour.