When Trump was caught on tape joking about his lewd attitude towards women, he defended himself by saying it was just “locker room talk”. But talk matters, as is demonstrated in Sarah Daniels’ 1983 play Masterpieces, which was derided by many male critics on its premiere, and now gets a timely revival.
In an early scene, set at a dinner party, the men delight in telling sexist jokes about rape in front of the women. But Daniels’ ground-breaking play makes the link between misogynistic jokes and misogynistic actions. Set in pre-internet times when porn came between pages, it also suggests that porn depicting sexual violence against women leads to real violence against women and harassment.
This consciousness-raising story may lack the complexities of 21st-century gender politics, but doesn’t lack impact. Rowena (Olivia Darnley giving the production’s only memorable performance) is a social worker who considers herself happily married and thinks little of the fact that when her job keeps her out late at night she feels afraid of being alone on the streets.
When a client is abused and she starts to investigate the pornography that her husband and his friends think is normal, she becomes angry and takes action. “How they must hate us,” she says on seeing one image.
Daniels’s play, rightly kept in period by director Melissa Dunne, sometimes shows its age. But it also reminds us, in the era of #MeToo, that perhaps progress in the way men talk, think about and treat women has been less dramatic than we might think. The men in Masterpieces wear their misogyny like a badge of pride: today, it is more likely to be covert.
The play is a fascinating example of radical non-linear storytelling, and it’s only a pity that it doesn’t get a sharper, stronger production than Dunne manages here. The decision to use a small cast in multiple roles does Daniels’ provocative drama no favours, and neither does a lack of pace, fluidity and clarity.
- At Finborough, London, until 19 May. Box office: 0844 847 1652.
