Out for the Count, directed by Sam Rumpel, is a violently intense two-hander performance that explores the oft-avoided question: what the heck is going on with men?
Masculinity, viewed in positive terms, is associated with strength, independence and stoic rationality, yet so often these ideals come at the expense of ‘feminine’ loving and feeling– things men need to express to live a decent life, yet are taught to unlearn by the time of adulthood. With emotional repression, the tenets of masculinity twist into ugly forms. Domination, violence and self-harm just as aptly characterise the male experience, if not modeled by members of the family, then through peers and popular culture. In the media, we can all identify negative role models- the Trumps and Tates of the world, but ask someone to name a positive one, one who might be cool to kids, and they will really have to search.
Sharing themes and motifs with the 1999 movie Fight Club, the play is about a depressed young man (played by Henry Kent) whose life is violently disrupted by his split-personality shadow self; here in the form of a jacked lucha libre wrestler played by Oliver Hughes. With the stage arranged like a boxing ring, the two characters taunt each other in macho provocations until they are bouncing around like lead balloons, smashing into each other again and again with shocking force. Furniture is broken, cups of water are knocked over, and the tense score makes the violence more frightening than entertaining. But the choreography is impressive, as much a dance as a fighting. There is a symmetry to every punch and grapple, as if you are watching someone fight their reflection in the mirror.
Like all WWE wrestlers, Hughes’ luchador character embodies the worst aspects of hegemonic masculinity: an abusive bully who can only find satisfaction, success and selfhood through domination. But unlike Fight Club’s shadow man, Tyler Durden played by Brad Pitt, who conflates alpha-masculinity with self-actualisation– the play’s luchador man makes it very clear that there is nothing there behind the mask. Only hurt, emptiness and despair. As Barbara Deming puts it:
“I think the reason that men are so very violent is that they know, deep in themselves, that they’re acting out a lie, and so they’re furious about being caught up in a lie. But they don’t know how to break it… They’re in a rage because they’re acting out a lie- which means that in some part of themselves they want to be delivered from it- are homesick for the truth.”
“So what do you want me to be?” cries one of the tortured characters. What is the alternative to toxic masculinity? A cynical answer is provided in a comedic dance number, where the two wrestlers frolic with limp wrists and then tango in an intimate embrace. The purpose of the dance is unclear. Is it there to satirise the dumb patriarchal logic that assumes the only alternative to ‘being a man’ is to be ‘a sissy’? Or, by having us laugh at the tired joke that ‘wrestlers are secretly gay’, does the play conform to the locker-room logic it critiques? I’d like to be charitable and go with the former view, but this makes the question even more desperate.
If conventional masculinity is a spiritual dead end, and we can only think of cynical alternatives or outright rejections, then what should men be? I have a baby nephew and we all love him, but I worry– how can he grow up happy and sane in a patriarchal culture that makes men, and everyone, so deeply unhappy? In a clever move, the play offers no answer.
Out for the Count is a truly haunting play that will generate good conversation and dark nights of the soul. It is on at Perth’s Blue Room theatre every night until the 1st of February.
Make sure to check the content warnings, as there are some very dark themes and disturbing moments. If distressed, you can reach out to any of the helplines below:
Lifeline
13 11 14
Mensline Australia
1300 789 978
1800RESPECT
1800 737 732
https://www.1800respect.org.au/