BOTH FUNNY AND DEVASTATING, AFTER SEX WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH AND CRY

By Rachel Cameron-Potter | Stuff Rachel Says ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

Chances are, you’ve either been in a situationship, or know someone who’s been in one. You’re attracted to one another but aren’t ready for commitment, so instead opt for a no-strings-attached, sex-only, friends-with-benefits type of relationship.

You’ll also know that more often than not, these things typically don’t end well. One person usually develops feelings for the other, turning recreational sex into an unspoken power struggle that, more often than not, ends in heartbreak.

Written by Siofra Dromgoole and directed by Izzy Parriss, After Sex captures the essence of these ephemeral relationships in just 65 short minutes. Told almost entirely through post-coital scenes, Him (Azan Ahmed) and Her (Antonia Salib) are committed to keeping things casual, but when conversation shifts from desert island fantasies to fears for the future, feelings get in the way and things get complicated.

Despite being advertised as an “erotic two-handler”, the play is never overtly provocative. Bedroom scenes balance dry, apathetic humour with revelations that capture the zeitgeist of zillenial existentialism, and characters spend most of the play in matching white vests and boxer shorts, occasionally changing into and out of oversized clothing when not in the bedroom.

It’s through these frank, yet eloquent conversations that we learn more about the character’s most intimate thoughts and feelings, yet little is known about the characters themselves. There are a few characteristics shared with the audience that make them tangible — she’s a manager who killed her guinea pigs, he’s a bisexual man who doesn’t talk to his dad — but on the whole, remain elusive, creating a blank canvas for the audience to project their own experiences onto.

The neutrality of the performance, from the genderless clothing and sparse setting, to Dromgoole’s decision to christen the characters as Him and Her, keeps the situationship at the centre of the narrative, with the characters only stand-ins for those in the audience who have found themselves in the same predicaments. In doing so, the characters become more empathetic, their story more compelling, and the ending all the more devastating.

As for the acting, Ahmed and Salib were a delight to watch. The chemistry between the two on stage is electric, portraying the push-pull dynamic of their conflicting attachment styles through lines that verge on poetry. Even the smallest gestures and facial expressions added to the story, from Salib’s vacant stare on learning she’s pregnant, to Ahmed’s furrowed brow as he suppresses his frustration when asked about his family, and Ahmed’s “quantum moment” soliloquy blew me away.

After Sex is a gripping portrayal of modern relationships, and gives justice to the flings in our lives that, although short-lived, shape us in one way or another. Both funny and devastating, this play will make you laugh and cry, and the vulnerability at its core will leave you questioning if intimacy only stops when the lights come on.

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Photo Credit: Jake Bush