Review: Conversations After Sex, Park Theatre

Mark O’Halloran’s Conversations After Sex won Best New Play at the Irish Times Awards in 2022 and now makes its London debut. Set entirely in a rotating series of bedrooms, an unnamed woman (Olivia Lindsay) has a series of, well, conversations after sex. Julian Moore-Cook plays every man she encounters. The sometimes totally anonymous hookups allow our character, ‘She’, to explore thoughts and feelings one might not normally be willing to open up about, in that intimate post-coital mindspace when defences are low. Lindsay and Moore-Cook have great, convincing chemistry that really captures the tension and vulnerability of their characters.

Georgia Wilmot’s set is simple and to the point – a dishevelled double bed in the centre with clothing scattered all around. Behind the bed a large lightbox changes lights and colour (Bethany Gupwell) and along with music (Xana) moves the action between characters and bedrooms. 

Director Jess Edwards lets the text do most of the heavy work, unafraid to rush the sometimes quiet and awkward moments after sex. Scenes can flow into each other almost like a dream, or more a memory. It’s as if She were reflecting on these encounters later in life, recalling the emotions rather than the events such that this perhaps verges into being a memory play. Even as Moore-Cook plays each man distinctly, the lines between them also begin to blur a little. Perhaps all the men are simply her type, or perhaps the memory and her experiences are beginning to blur together. At one point, She notes how one of the men reminds her of someone else.

Her interactions with various males, each different in temperament and age, highlight how She uses sex to cope with loss and alienation, rather than to forge lasting bonds. The men can be shallow, one talking about his fiancée and looking almost for confession or absolution. Or they perhaps just self-sabotage, testing the limits of detachment, eventually one refusing to even tell her his name. None of the men are caricatures but are believable, each navigating sex, hookups, and loneliness with some degree of need and honesty. O’Halloran’s script really highlights the dissonance between physical intimacy and emotional availability.

These glimpses into the woman’s experiences allow us to slowly and partially piece together her life. She isn’t seeking romance in the conventional sense – her encounters are less about desire and more about distraction and survival, with an aching for a recent loss coming more to the forefront as the story goes along.

It is interesting how the play approaches modern hookups. Some of them come from apps but there isn’t a phone in sight. There’s no bedside table charger, no retreating to the comfort of a screen after a hookup, no calling an Uber to make a quick exit. While the characters may have met virtually, the time spent together in bed is raw, focused and very much real. It lends the play a kind of timelessness. Strip out a couple of references to apps, and this could be played anytime, anyplace. We see all of these connections without screens, with real connections, and it highlights how intimacy can be more genuine when we aren’t hiding behind technology. The characters are left to confront each other – and themselves – without filters or distraction. At its heart, Conversations After Sex is a strong script, brought to life by an equally strong cast. It’s a memory play – not just a series of conversations and sex, but full of emotional reflections, filtered through grief, longing, and the palpable ache for connection in an ever-disconnected world.

Writer: Mark O’Halloran
Director: Jess Edwards
Lighting Designer Bethany Gupwell
Sound Designer & Composer: Xana
Set & Costume Designer: Georgia Wilmot

Conversations After Sex plays at the Park Theatre until 17 May.