Sex pests and patriarchs

Bitter Wheat, David Mamet’s latest play, features a loathsome Hollywood hotshot, Barney Fein, who offers to turn an actress into a superstar provided she lets him rape her. The show’s gruesome storyline has flashes of bitter comedy. Fein boasts that the Writers Guild of America would ‘drink a beaker of my mucus’ if he forced them to. Although this is the ultimate #MeToo play it can’t prevent itself from taking a masculine point of view. Fein’s assistant, Sondra (Doon Mackichan), conveniently vanishes at the right moment and leaves the starlet at the monster’s mercy. But was Sondra complicit? We aren’t told.

And we learn nothing about her attitude to her boss. Nor do we hear enough about the victim (newcomer Ioanna Kimbook), who lacks even the simplest tactic to deter a sex pest (‘I’m going to be sick’). A female writer would have given her more guile and more emotional armour.