A decade after they first performed in Michele Riml’s hit comedy Sexy Laundry, Globus Theatre’s James Barrett and Sarah Quick are reprising their roles as a middle-aged couple seeking to rekindle their sex life when the play returns to the stage at Lakeview Arts Barn in Bobcaygeon for 14 performances from June 21 to July 8.
The play tells the story of Henry and Alice, who have been married for 25 years and have hit a physical plateau. With a copy of the book Sex for Dummies in hand, Alice convinces Henry they should check into a spa hotel for a weekend of alone time in an attempt to rejuvenate their relationship. While Alice hopes to unearth her inner vixen and seduce him, Henry prefers to keep things comfortable and easy. The result is a hilarious but compassionate exploration of the reasons why people stay together or drift apart.
Written by critically acclaimed Vancouver-based playwright Michele Riml, Sexy Laundry debuted at Vancouver Fringe in 2002. It has since become an international hit, playing at theatres across Canada, the U.S., Britain, Europe, and South Africa.
In a 2022 interview with CBC, Riml described her motivation for writing Sexy Laundry.
“When I wrote it, which was quite a long time ago now, I was just newly married,” she recalled. “I’m not sure that I thought I was writing a play about middle-aged sex as much as I was writing a play about a marriage that had started to go stale 25 years in. My glib answer has always been I’d been married for a few years and I just projected forward after having an argument with my husband about something and I thought ‘Wow, this marriage thing is a long time’.”
“I also wanted to honour the idea that it’s a commitment and it’s hard work. Marriage is not just an upward trajectory of happily ever after. There are real hills and valleys, highs and lows. And even more than that, there’s just that flatlining that can happen which is just feeling like it’s very mundane and what else is out there. I wanted to investigate that kind of time in somebody’s life. Now that I am in my fifties and I’m actually coming up to my 25th wedding anniversary, I realize I’m right.”
Riml also commented on the reactions she’s observed when audiences watch the play.
“Apart from the comedy, the laughter, and the tears, I think there is a sense of relief that happens in the audience,” Riml said. “People go, ‘Oh my goodness, somebody else feels like I do, somebody else is struggling with the same problem.’ This thing that sometimes we don’t even want to talk about in our own marriage, but certainly we don’t want to talk about with other people. There’s a lot of shame around sex problems, or when people find distances happening in their relationship. There’s pressure to keep up a good, brave face.”
“What I’ve noticed when I watch the audiences, whether it’s in Canada or in Poland, is this thing happens with couples in the audience. They’ll come in, they’ll sit together, they laugh a bit and stuff, and then as it gets a little bit more heated, they separate — like, the man will lean over one way and the woman will lean over another way. You can see, they actually create distance between themselves. And then, as the play becomes more intimate and more is revealed, they start to lean back into each other. It’s such a great feeling to watch that, to know there’s that kind of connection and relationship happening between the people in the audience and the characters on stage, because ultimately for me that’s what I love about theatre. It’s about real-time, real human connection.”
Performing as Henry is Globus Theatre co-founder and artistic producer James Barrett, who has appeared in many Globus productions over the past 19 seasons, most recently in May’s production of Mending Fences by Norm Foster, and has also numerous television and film credits including Missing Treasures and Welcome To Mooseport. Globus Theatre co-founder and artistic director Sarah Quick, performing as Alice, is an accomplished actor who has written and starred in numerous productions including Having Relations, Sunshine Express, The Men Commandments and Knickers!: A Brief Comedy.
The real-life couple are reprising their roles from Globus Theatre’s 2013 production of Sexy Laundry, which became one of the best-selling shows in the theatre company’s 20-year history.
“Sexy Laundry was so much fun to do the first time around that we ended up touring the production to the UK in 2013,” says Quick, Globus Theatre’s co-founder and artistic director, in a media release. “Now, 10 years later, we thought what better way to celebrate Globus’ 20th season than with a remount.”
“It’s a comedy about a middle-aged couple but I think its themes appeal to a wide demographic,” Quick adds. “I’d recommend it to anyone who has had sex, or is thinking about it.”
A full-length play with an intermission, Sexy Laundry runs for 14 performances at the Lakeview Arts Barn in Bobcaygeon at 8 p.m. from Wednesday, June 21st to Saturday, June 24th, from Tuesday, June 27th to Thursday, June 29th, and from Tuesday, July 4th to Saturday, July 8th, with additional 2 p.m. matinee performances on Thursday, June 29th and Saturday, July 8th.
An optional dinner is available before the evening performances at 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 for the show only, or $90 for dinner and the show, and are available by calling the Globus Theatre box office at 705-738-2037 or online at globustheatre.com.
