Review: I, The Boar, Etcetera Theatre

Sex, sexuality and obsession sit at the centre of I, The Boar; the text embraces perversion and the violence of carnal desire, both in its more thematic translation of Adonis’ hunting of the boar into a prostitute obsessed with his client, and in the language of the text itself.

Each side of the stage is its own separate world. The Adonis figure, here realised as the prostitute (played by Joshua Herberg), is pulled between each side, from his relationship with the Venus character (Hope Taylor-Marsh) to one of his clients, the boar (Joe Wright).

Wright casts an intimidating intimacy in his portrayal of the client – pig-headed and petulant, but delicate and sensual in his own perverse way. He makes himself an utterly uncomfortable character to watch that somehow the audience still absolutely cares about. The client insists further and further that the rules of their games be enforced, while never actually having sex with the man whose time he pays for. The lack of consummation of this two-way obsession somehow simultaneously creates a spectacular sexual tension and a completely sterile environment as the client demands more and more role-play scenarios for the two of them to act out. Sex, and the ritualisation of sex, bound up as a metaphor for Adonis’ boar hunt, elegantly bring to mind the famous scene in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the hunt for a boar and the hunt for a lover are intercut and strangely ritualised; to take a traditional hunt and reconstitute it in this way specifically demonstrates that this is a text conscious of its literary and thematic heritage.

And, entrenched as it is in classical literature, the writing is extremely arch, often teetering on the edge of poetry, sometimes to its own detriment; the text seems like it wants to end on three or four occasions, each time in grand and abstract ways, and each time detracting from the effectiveness of the previous ‘ending’. The paradox the prostitute uses to finally explode the relationship he has with his client isn’t, however, emphasised adequately, with not quite enough kindling within that scene to build to their ending, though the development towards it across the play is well done. 

The production would benefit from some condensing in the later scenes, but the inclusion of the real soil in this graveyard moment is very compelling, following the build-up of the characters’ dreams of being buried alive. 

Taylor-Marsh as the woman effortlessly projects an intensity and sincerity that’s absolutely spellbinding for the audience. She is given slightly less theatrically meaty material to work with, but her magnetism and specificity of characterisation make the audience resent the prostitute as she does every time he’s pulled back into the world of his client. 

Herberg is compellingly submissive, malleable, and desperate as the prostitute, eager to please his client at all costs. The slow beginning to his rebellion is masterfully plotted, and the increasing insistence on a replacement lamp as he approaches the ending is superbly played, the audience rapt as he slides seamlessly from intention to intention.

Touching, perverted, and, at times, hilarious, this play is an excellent and refreshing way to reconstitute mythology amongst a culture currently awash with adaptations. It verges on performance art in its own way, and is absolutely worth the watch.

Writer: Jay Palombella 
Director: Theo Parkin

I, The Boar plays at the Etcetera Theatre until Saturday 15 August as part of the Camden Fringe.