The card reads: “Mistress Dominique’s Dark Room. Bondage, domination, fantasy. Full range of services, teenage mistress, discretion guaranteed.”

This gives you both a good idea of what the play is about, and the totally wrong idea at the same time. The play is set in suburbia – in Mistress Dominque’s Dark Room, a state-of-the-art, fully equipped BDSM dungeon – where the Mistress finds herself faced with a tour party in the form of the audience. Gathering her wits she launches into an hour of frank, funny and philosophical conversation.  

But this is not just a show about sex, it is a lot deeper than that, tapping into philosophy and what it means to crave human intimacy in all its forms. Mistress Dominique also shares with the audience some of her own experiences that lead her to her current career, and lets the group in on her own personal doughnut theory of the universe. 

The Dark Room comes into its own with this production. Nick Green has made a beautiful dungeon in a space that looks like it was made for it. Because all the action happens on stage there is no trouble with any of the sight lines and the actor moves with ease through the audience asking personal questions that the audience would rather not answer.  

The lighting, by Nick Skarott, is understated and effective, while the costuming of Jackie MacKenzie lenda an authentic air to the production.

Opening night sees Brie Shaw take to the role with confidence, creating an atmosphere that instantly makes you like her. It’s is a long play to do all by yourself and keeping the energy up for that amount of time (the show runs about an hour) is difficult.

Probably more so when the audience desperately doesn’t want you asking questions about what sort of fantasy they would like. So occasionally the energy goes downhill, but Brie always rallies to bring it up again. There is a little rushing of lines, most likely due to nerves, but only a few stumbles.  All in all Brie does a very good performance in the difficult format of the one-women-show.

The second night sees Sapphira Raven take to the stage. While Brie’s Mistress is earthy, Sapphira channels a more distant, ‘upper class’ Mistress. This puts the show in a whole new light for someone who, like me, has seen it before. Sapphira’s slower presentation gives the piece a different pace and energy.

She also gets an audience that doesn’t mind being put on the spot. There is the same problem with audience energy wavering, leading me to suspect that it is more a fault of the format rather than the actors. The audience also misses the first line, which is delivered from the lobby. But Sapphira also gives a great performance.

Whichever actress you get, you will get a good show. While different, they are both equally suited to the play and give engaging performances.

Written by Kiwi playwright Fiona Samuel this play had its first airing in 1993, a date that surprised me as it feels a lot more recent than that. This production was originally directed and produced by local thespian favourite Joy Green, who sadly passed away during the rehearsal period. Her daughter Megan Green has taken the reins and the show goes on, now in memory of Joy. I applaud Megan and Nick Green for carrying on with this production at such a difficult time.  

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