When you’re a handsome, successful (and totally ripped) gay man in a picture-perfect, happily non-monogamous relationship with your equally handsome, successful (and totally ripped) husband – free to be intimate with any other willing gorgeous men in Manhattan, in addition to each other – life must feel quite peachy, right? 

How could you possibly harbour any unmet desires or feelings of emptiness? How could one night shared with a cute masseuse do anything to harm the rock-solid foundation of such an ideal marriage?

Matthew Mitcham and Matthew Predny in Afterglow. Photo © Cameron Grant/Parenthesy

An intimate three-hander exploring the twists, turns and thrusts of a modern ménage à trois, Afterglow makes its anticipated Down Under debut following critical success Off-Broadway and productions around the globe. 

The Australian cast brings together an eclectic trio of actors: Julian Curtis (Gaslight, Cock, Dance Academy), Matthew Predny (Titanique, Avenue Q, Kinky Boots), and gold-medal-winning Australian Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham (whose growing handful of acting credits includes a couple of off-West End shows). 

While the play’s evocative exploration of unconventional relationship dynamics is a major drawcard, the production’s promotional material – featuring steamy imagery of nude, muscular men showered in gorgeous lighting and falling water – is clearly leaning into a different selling point. (And good for them. If Heated Rivalry has taught us anything, there’s a broad audience that wants to see romantic drama and watch beautiful men make out with each other.) 

The nudity is not merely reserved for the poster, either – the action begins with an all-in threesome. But (and there’s three butts), this production doesn’t make choices that are merely pornographic – moments of intimacy are filled with an authentic sense of desire, excitement and need, demonstrating the conflicting feelings that occur as these three men explore the unknown territory of their new dynamic.

As a whole, the physicality of the performance is beautifully considered – even simple scene transitions are filled with magnetism, the characters dancing and weaving around one another, leaning into each other and, pointedly, eventually repelling away from one another. 

Perhaps as a nod to the show’s title, lighting plays a key role, too. The sleek, minimalistic set – with a working shower front and centre – is bathed in vivid washes of light. Passionate pinks, moody blues and bright (but not overly-powerful) lights that are perfectly placed to illuminate two glistening bodies as they circle one another, almost glowing.

However, the vocal delivery (and its source material) doesn’t always quite hold up to the production’s aesthetic delivery. The cast’s American accents can be inconsistent, and the script initially gets a little too tied up in ‘setting the scene’. But as we all settle into the story, the dialogue grows more conversational, allowing the actors to also ease more into it – and offering up genuine samples of the everyday scenarios that both plague and bless all relationships, non-monogamous and otherwise. 

Matthew Mitcham & Julian Curtis in Afterglow. Photo © Cameron Grant/Parenthesy

There are interesting dynamics at play – age gaps, career gaps, commitment gaps, the quibbles that arise between the ‘golden retriever partner’ and the ‘black cat partner’.

Whether this is by design or not, the most confusing thing about the central couple is that they don’t give the impression of a couple who is supposedly preparing to become parents (with their child-to-be growing out-of-sight, out-of-mind and offstage in a surrogate’s belly). Josh and Alex don’t seem able to break from their own navel-gazing long enough to give a child the requisite attention and care. (Then again, it becomes evident that a baby isn’t likely to be the band-aid solution this couple needs.)

For all the steam and spectacle, when Afterglow is at its best, it is good at providing a non-sensationalised depiction of non-monogamy and gay relationships that doesn’t seek to give us all the answers. 

The situations may be most relatable to a certain subset of relatively privileged, white gay men with metropolitan postcodes (and an incredibly low bodyfat percentile). But for a show that features a whole lot of shirtless men, Afterglow finds the common threads we all wear.

Afterglow plays at Chapel off Chapel, Melbourne until 21 February.

It then plays the Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst, Sydney, 26 February–22 March.