Teleny – Fly-on-the-Wall Theatre
This show features a Bacchanalian all-male orgy, sex on a piano, murder, suicide, drug use and blackmail. One thing it should not have been was dull.
Overview
Dear readers, you can’t say that we at Concrete Playground don’t do things for you.
You were probably curious about Teleny. Maybe you’ve seen the posters or the Facebook ads; all bare skin and sultry eyes. Maybe you’ve heard of the novel it's adapted from — a 19th century porno frequently, if questionably, attributed to Oscar Wilde and his circle of literary friends. What would this possibly be like on stage? Dare you go? Well we went to see it for you, we sat through all of it, all three and a half hours of it, so now you don’t have to.
Seldom has so little drama been extracted from such sensationalist material. The story has a torrid gay love affair between a young Parisian and an exotic pianist, a Bacchanalian all-male orgy, sex on a piano, a mother sleeping with her son’s boyfriend, murder, rape, suicide, drug use, blackmail, you name it. One thing it should not have been was dull.
However, the show plodded along, weighed down with long-winded monologues by the protagonist Camille (Tom Byers), as if the writer had not realised adapting a novel for theatre meant more than simply speaking the novel to the audience. Camille spoke over the top of everything, including ruining an almost effective love scene by turning away from his lover (Jackson Raine as Teleny) and breaking into a detailed description of what they had for dinner.
For what was supposedly intended as erotica, there were very few sexy moments, although the cast did come alive a bit when they all got to be naked for the orgy scene. The acting at least was of authentic porno standard throughout, mostly stilted but occasionally over the top. The running time could probably have been slashed simply by reducing the number of dramatic pauses, which were applied both excessively ("I… could… never… love… a… WOMAN!") and pointlessly ("I… will… have… a… champagne… and a BISCUIT!")
It had the kind of ridiculous staging where characters would climb onto a table for no reason other than to be dramatic, pop up cartoonishly from behind a chaise longue or throw themselves randomly to their knees, including one scene where Camille does this onto the keys of a piano. It was meant to be in Paris, though the accents were all over the place: some tried French, some went for Cockney, one guy opted for both in the same character. There was even a "comtesse" (Jonathan Duffy) doing a reedy drag American. The snippets of attempted French scattered through the script were, ah mon dieu, truly horrible.
At the end of the gruelling two-hour first act, a good half of the audience bailed. The second act was when we got the big gay orgy, the officer being buggered with a bottle and the cross-dressing doctor, so those quitters missed out. As should you, if you’re wise.
Look, if the play was a normal length, Teleny could possibly claim a so-bad-it’s-fun kind of appeal but three-and-a-half hours (which, be advised, is its actual running time not what's advertised) is too much time just to get a few giggles when it tries to be sexy or dramatic. We sat through every second to save you from it, dear readers, please don’t let our sacrifice be in vain.
Photo credit: Dushan Philip.
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