Review: Fingers & Spoons is a solo piece about how not to open your marriage

Pascale Roger-McKeever jumps on the non-monogamy bandwagon and drives it right over a cliff.

Throughout history, marriages have mostly been open – for men. The expectation of sexual monogamy was increasingly applied to the woman, who was expected to stay at home, raise children, and suffer from her husband's infidelity or risk destitute status. But as the legal hurdles to women's equality have fallen and women's earning potential has approached (and in some areas exceeded) equality with men, it's only natural that the fairer sex is demanding a deal that's… fairer is.

How does it look? Pascale Roger-McKeever promises to give us an idea fingers and spoon, now performing at the Soho Playhouse. Subtitled “The Ins and Outs of an Open Marriage,” this confessional solo exhibition is mostly about outs, which feels like an endless therapy session that we, the analysts, pay to attend.

Josh Iacovelli's scenic design, depicting a rope sculpture suspended from a trellis that appears to be a baroque form of Japanese bondage, makes for a provocative opening image. But from the first scene, in which Hubby (the character name Roger-McKeever gives to her ex-husband) begs for an open marriage near the ever-precarious seven-year mark, we know that this story is neither good nor sexy .

“Please, please, please, it will be safe, I promise,” Roger-McKeever imitates him in a generic stupid man’s voice. It is abundantly clear that he is already sleeping with another woman, and his invitation to his wife to explore the world on his own seems to be a concession intended to allow him to continue to do so.

She reluctantly agrees and begins sleeping with a much older neighbor, whom she refers to as BuJew (because he is a Jew who converted to Buddhism). She immediately catches emotion, although it's never quite clear what she sees in this charming, over-the-top lawyer, other than one important talent: “And before Mama can judge further, he's stuck his finger in her and worn her by her vagina.” ' over to his bed.

The strangeness of this piece is compounded by Roger-McKeever's insistence on speaking in the third person and referring to himself as “Mama.” You might cringe (I definitely did), but this is an important reminder that there is a child involved in this story. What's disappointing is that Roger-McKeever has little to say about the challenges of securing adequate childcare as she and her husband deal with their respective midlife crises.

There are other characters: Mom swaps stories with her best friend, a cowgirl; and she also flirts with a surfer who appears to be Australian, although it is never entirely clear due to the slurred dialect Roger-McKeever uses to play him.

When you see a really good solo artist like Eddie Izzard or Phoebe Waller-Bridge, you never have any doubts about the speaker's identity; The characters are immediately recognizable. Not so with Roger-McKeever, whose physicality and speech never change significantly from character to character, making scenes involving multiple characters very difficult to follow.

Director Austin Pendleton didn't let her sharpen these performances, resulting in a confusing 80-minute monologue that might as well be delivered breathlessly over a long brunch. At least then we'd have bottomless mimosas to offset the boredom that comes with hearing about a marital row that the storyteller clearly thinks is possible SUI generis.

fingers and spoon It's not about an open marriage, but about an inevitable divorce. That's a shame, because there are people who actually make non-monogamy work, and they're not all insufferable hipsters who like to tell people about it New York Times above her Polycule. (One suspects that discretion is the secret to any open relationship.) These are the people who could really tell you all about the ins and outs of an open marriage, but they don't talk.