Confrontational and challenging, Sweetmeat is not for the faint-hearted at the Old Red Lion
“There is no forgiveness without blood”
Well you can’t say you’re not warned. The list of trigger warnings for Sweetmeat as it begins is heavy and necessary and there’s also physical warnings for those in the front row of the Old Red Lion which is very much in the splatter zone. Tackling taboo themes in a confrontational manner is something theatre can do well, sometimes, and whilst this play whips up a shocking intensity, I’m not sure it knows exactly what to do with it.
Having been dumped by his fiancée who has had enough of his sadistic impulses and predilection for snuff films, Sigmund needs a new place to live and finds a perfect alternative in Christian’s spare room, especially since it seems like he’s a kindred soul, albeit one with major mummy issues. But exploring their shared obsessions leads them down a dark, dark path as their developing companionship metastasises into something infinitely more complex.
This is where those trigger warnings come into play as (mere) sado-machisism and self-harm mutates into suicidal ideation and cannibalism, the twisted desires of this pair – to eat and to be eaten – fit together as if fated. It is bloody and brutal and genuinely disturbing but it is also a massive leap that writer Ivan de Jager doesn’t quite justify. There’s so much trauma to unpack in both their pasts but to finally cross this mahoosive taboo needs something more.
The experimental nature of de Jager’s writing doesn’t always help here, as prose intermittently gives way to verbatim theatre with extracts from internet chatrooms. And Connor Geoghegan’s production makes a series of curious choices – musical cues that punch you on the nose, the fatal inclusion of an interval just as things start to ramp up – they just make an already difficult watch harder to take. Jamie McClean and Matthew Dunlop deliver committed performances though that certainly swing hard.
