Lucian, Plato and the Secrets of the Pussy was my eighth and last show at this year’s Fringe.  It wasn’t on my original list but I heard good things during the week so I added it.  I’m glad I did.  It’s written by Jules Spizzirri and Sydney Scott and directed by Alyssa Featherstone.  It’s playing (there are two more shows) in one of the Fringe’s larger spaces; the Michael Young Theatre at Soulpepper.

It’s a gender bending romp through an imagined Ancient Greece with the protagonists trying to understand sex and love; or at least sex.  Leiana (Jasmine Brough) is a typically naive Athenian wife who, rather surprisingly, leaves her dweeby, immature academic husband Lucian (Kael Buryn) to live with her girlfriend Megillus (Jonnie Lombard) on Lesbos.  Lucian is devastated and confused so calls in his friend Plato (Jewell Bowry – last seen in FLEX) to help him figure things out.  Hilarity ensues.

It’s probably fair to say that Megillus is the only one who has a clue about the “secrets of the Pussy”.  Leiana is charmingly naive but the “guys” are hopeless.  There’s a very funny scene where they “consult the pots” to see what two girls might get up to; with the help of the “girls” acting out the scenes on the vase for them.  Add to that that Plato, in a basketball uniform with PLATO plastered across the ass, may be taking down Socrates deepest thoughts but it’s only when he catches him late at night in deep “conversation” with Alcibiades that he realises the true nature of “symposium” which he promptly demonstrates on and for Lucian.

While the “guys” are slap-sticking it through their “investigation” the “girls” are exploring in a much gentler and rather charming way, though with plenty of slightly less raunchy humour.  Leiana has a really hard time figuring out how not to be an Athenian wife (even with another woman) and Megillus has to bring her along far more gently than the “guys” can imagine, since their idea of sex is pretty firmly rooted (sorry Australians) in rather one sided penetrative sex.  The only real question for them is figuring out what’s penetrating what.

It’s fast paced, the comic timing is impeccable and the result is very funny and definitely raunchy without being all that explicit.  There’s a pleasing contrast between the frat boy antics of the “guys” and the much more sensitive explorations of the “girls”.  It’s really all rather clever and well worth seeing.

Photo credit: DuaSiddiqui