In Sexy Laundry, director Diana Donnelly unpacks intimacy and longevity in long-term relationships
Arts Club Theatre Company stages Michele Riml’s international-hit play about a couple seeking to rekindle their sex life 25 years into marriage
Sexy Laundry director Diana Donnelly.
Arts Club Theatre Company presents Sexy Laundry at the Granville Island Stage from April 11 to May 12
IN BELGIAN-AMERICAN PSYCHOTHERAPIST and relationship expert Esther Perel’s book Mating in Captivity, she asks the question: how do we desire what we already have?
For director Diana Donnelly, Perel’s inquiry has been a central reference point in bringing to life Michele Riml’s play Sexy Laundry at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage this month. The rom-com centres husband and wife Henry and Alice as they grapple with a lacklustre sex life 25 years into their marriage. Hoping to spice things up and reignite the spark in their relationship, Alice books them a naughty hotel retreat away from their kids, jobs, and stressors.
Sexy Laundry premiered 20 years ago at the Arts Club, and went on to become an international hit—it’s been translated into over 15 languages, and has been performed in Germany, Mexico, and beyond. Donnelly notes that Riml’s play brings compassion, wit, depth, heart, and humour to a globally relatable part of life.
“In a long relationship, you are constantly getting remarried, and disconnecting, and getting remarried, and I think the play captures that problem,” the director tells Stir ahead of Sexy Laundry’s run. “On the one hand, you want the security of being with a person that you know really well, but on the other hand, you need to open yourself up to the possibility that you don’t know this person at all. And in a way, that is the portal to bringing the sexy back into your relationship.”
Originally from Montreal, Donnelly spent 20 years as a theatremaker in Ontario before moving with her family to Vancouver (which is home base for her husband, actor Jeff Meadows) in 2021. Recent projects include directing Studio 58’s The Tempest and acting in Soulpepper Theatre Company’s Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train; this summer, she’ll direct Bard on the Beach’s mainstage production of Twelfth Night.
Sexy Laundry stars just two actors—Lossen Chambers as Alice and Cavan Cunningham as Henry. Being part of a tight-knit crew gave Donnelly the opportunity to foster deep conversations with everyone involved.
“It’s the kind of play where you can’t help but talk through your personal stories and laugh, and that’s part of the process—connecting the dots between your reality and the characters,” she explains. “So, we would have funny conversations like, ‘Who in your household likes silence in the morning, and who likes to talk right away? Do you cook together? Who needs more solitude?’ All these kinds of funny things that usually influence people’s everyday lives and their happiness—what needs do you have, and are they aligned with your partner’s needs?”
Donnelly credits much of the play’s brilliance to the talented production team behind its staging. Set designer Amir Ofek makes sure Alice and Henry land in a chic hotel room with a sharply imagined aesthetic (says Donnelly, “This hotel room is not full of history and sadness and recrimination—it’s a blank canvas for them to get to know each other again”).
Costume designer Alaia Hamer, lighting designer Kyla Gardiner, and sound designer Nancy Tam help craft the play’s heart-fluttering energy, while intimacy director Lisa Goebel and fight director Sam Jeffery worked with the actors to iron out more dramatic moments of connection.
“In Sexy Laundry, all the idiosyncrasies that come out in real-life relationships come out in Alice and Henry’s back-and-forth-ing,” Donnelly says. “For example, Alice really wants Henry to surprise her with flowers sometimes, and he goes, ‘But I got you flowers on your birthday!’ And for her, that’s not good enough, because the element of surprise and fantasy is exactly what’s lacking in their domestic life. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding between the two of them, because they speak different love languages.”
In essence, Sexy Laundry delivers a storyline as hilarious as it is relevant. Circling back to Perel’s Mating in Captivity, Donnelly reflects on how maintaining a sense of mystery between partners can help foster continued eroticism and attraction—feelings that are essential to the longevity of love.
“This play is such a good time,” she says. “It’s so joyous. It’s so funny, sexy, intimate. And I think we are in a desperate need for connection and intimacy in our world that’s so loud, and moving so fast, and where we are all so reliant on our devices. I feel really proud of this production, because I know that people will leave the theatre holding hands, or kissing, or having difficult conversations that they haven’t had before.
“It’s a seemingly shiny, simple comedy about two people fighting for their love,” the director concludes, “but it actually offers something really profound: which is that in the end, you are responsible for your own happiness. You have to allow your partner to change as you change, and constantly meet each other again, and again, and again.” 
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