Jon is an acclaimed novelist, a charismatic university professor, and a middle-aged man staring down the end of his third marriage. Enter Annie - nineteen years old, a star student and a huge fan of Jon’s work. An undeniable attraction draws them into dangerous territory. With Ella Beatty and Hugh Jackman, the US premiere of award-winning playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes takes us down the most slippery of slopes and will have you questioning your perspective throughout.
It is only in the last few minutes – and, really, only after the show has ended — that it sank in how much of what Jon does is despicable, and how much of what happens to Annie falls short of consensual. It seems plausible to me that playwright Hannah Moscovitch and director Ian Rickson deliberately set out to make Annie dull – the opposite of a seductress or a predator (predatress?) in the David Mamet mold — and even worked to emphasize the 30-year difference in the actors’ ages, achieving an uncomfortable father-daughter vibe.
The ensuing affair, complete with liaisons in cheap hotel rooms and the inside of Jon’s car, proves predictable in its complications, feeling very much like any number of dramas revolving around imbalanced sexual relationships. It’s only as the play progresses that it becomes something more original and interesting, with the power dynamics and eventually even the perspective shifting. That the playwright is a woman telling the tale from a man’s point of view provides a clue as to what makes Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes so distinctive, if not particularly weighty.
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
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