SLUT a la carte
nytheatre.com review by Anthony C.E. Nelson
August 10, 2007
SLUT a la carte has a clear and valuable point of view, but is only a fitfully engaging viewing experience. The show is a one-woman confessional, told to us as by Matilda, who has just been arrested for "running a bawdy house." Matilda's "crime," according to her, has simply been that she likes to sleep with guys; lots of them.
As it turns out, Matilda's long-running feud with a neighboring senior center has led to the matron of the place turning her into the police with incriminating photos of her with different men that supposedly prove she's a prostitute. Although dressed provocatively, Matilda isn't what you'd expect from a woman who sleeps with dozens of different men; she's an accountant who complains when her neighbors make too much noise or don't clean up their garbage properly. While she goes through the process of being booked and waiting for release, Matilda tells us the story of how she recovered from a marriage without love by finding connection with as many men as she pleases.
Writer Brenda McFarlane has a good point to make, that women should be able to be just as comfortable in their sexuality as men, but the long story is only interesting by turns. Heidi Weeks is a good choice for the seemingly prim Matilda. It helps drive home McFarlane's point to have an actress who doesn't look or act like you'd expect a woman accused of running a brothel to look. Weeks delivers a solid, stagy performance, although when she presents a character other than Matilda she doesn't so much embody another character as show us what looks like Matilda doing an imitation of them.
There's no set to speak of, though Weeks does duck behind a curtain at one point to be "fingerprinted". McFarlane has written some interesting moments, but the story moves too slowly and contains too many far-fetched episodes (I don't think the police would arrest someone based on voyeuristic photos) to be thoroughly engaging.
