ABSTRACT
Sex is a common topic in Dea Loher’s plays: characters talk about sex, describe their sexual experiences and confide about sexual violence. It is very often, if not always, tied to violence. This chapter focuses on the way violence intrudes in Loher’s consensual sex scenes. Depicting sex on stage opens a space to describe characters’ bodies in a very intimate way and exposes their physical and emotional vulnerability while also offering them a specific kind of attention, which appears as a precious healing space for the imperfect, unconventional, injured bodies that Loher chooses to portray. The sex depicted on stage is also a strategy for characters haunted by the fear of disappearance to fight against death and their fear of it because sex allows them to feel present and embodied. Loher’s writing often combines commenting and narrating modes. This style has a double effect: it invites the audience to adopt a distanced point of view, but it also opens a theatrical space in which the character’s unspoken thoughts and feelings can be expressed, which allows empathy and produces a specific intimacy between the characters and the audience.
