Tender at Soho Theatre Review
Written by Greta for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review. All views are our own
Content advice: This production contains haze, strobe lighting, partial nudity and explicit content (including graphic depiction of sex).
Tender at Soho Theatre is as strange, funny and disarmingly intimate as its title suggests; an experience that leans fully into participation, physicality, and the uneasy line between performance and truth. Such a peculiar show could only be the product of the newest collaboration between writer Dave Harris and director Matthew Xia, the team behind the groundbreaking Tambo & Bones.
Red and green paddles are handed out before the show to signify “no” or “go”, allowing us to decide our level of involvement. Audience interaction is essential for the story Tender tells, and there has clearly been a lot of work to weave it thoughtfully throughout the production, with both the actors and the audience in mind. Consent and complicity sit right at the core of those exchanges, allowing for a comfortable (and enjoyable) experience.
The premise is as surreal as it is specific: Trae, Geoff and Donny work at a strip-club-adjacent venue, giving life to the porn subcategory of “dancing bears”. They are vividly drawn characters with loads of chemistry; Geoff’s (Dex Lee) almost abrasive wit is rounded out by earnest Trae’s (Kwami Odoom) excitability, with Donny’s (Darren Bennett) meditative leadership bringing it all together. When the club is threatened by the risk of closure, they are joined by B. (Jessie Mei Li), a creative, structured woman tasked with steering them towards a new show.
The show’s flashiest, most easily praisable feature is its sleek movement work. Physically exhilarating at every turn, with precisely crafted sequences that are delightful to witness, it does lean into what bodies can communicate that language can’t. There’s a clear tension between experience (those ineffable, embodied truths) and the urge to intellectualise everything; along with the conclusion that the healthiest solution lands somewhere in between.
Tender is also very funny. Incredibly funny, in fact, and so weird it catches you off guard. Beneath the many genuine laughs and even the amusingly cringe-worthy moments, sits something sharper: parents who were not supposed to be parents, the children they’ve failed, and the repercussions of those imperfect relationships on the characters’ ways of navigating intimacy. Everyone is fumbling towards connection, satisfaction, subjective truth; but the road is not always straightforward.
Running through Tender is the concept of pleasure. Who is the show for, whose pleasure are we thinking of, and why? Trae, Geoff and Donny are initially positioned as sexy, capable providers catering for the female gaze. Gradually, the piece becomes about their own capacity to feel pleasure too, and to understand how unbound the source of that can be. As they allow themselves much-restrained release in new ways, what emerges is less polished and larger-than-life, but more human - and, paradoxically, less threatening.
Hilarious, unexpected, and quietly thought-provoking, Tender is a starkly original exploration of masculinity, with just enough roughness around the edges to keep it honest. For all its explicitness that makes us squirm and giggle, the piece also rewards us with something more tentative: Trae, Geoff and Donnie in their “risky” versions. Softer, less certain - more tender.
Tender is playing at Soho Theatre (Dean Street) until the 6th of June
★ ★ ★ ★
