Massage
By: Michael Wilcox
Contributors: Wilcox, Michael
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London]
Language: eng
Description: 'Massage' presents the confusion of discovering one's sexuality from the perspective of an adult who is already sexually developed. It tells the story of Tony Dodge, a bicycle builder, and his ambiguous relationship with Simon, the twelve-year-old son of his former girlfriend Jane. The play does not explicitly address the notions of homosexuality and paedophilia that it suggests. Instead, Dodge displaces his feelings of lust toward Simon, and accordingly, his guilt and shame, with Rikki, a boy he hires from a massage agency. Rikki, himself, has endured sexual abuse in his childhood, and thus dissociates the emotional dimension from sexual relations; he considers it merely as an exploitative means to earn money. The play was first performed in the Hammersmith Lyric Studio in London, in 1986.
Notes: Previously issued in print: in Plays one. London: Methuen Drama, 1997.