In U.K. theater news, Mark Ravenhill has a new play at the Royal National called “Mother Clap’s Molly House”. The play intertwines both a contemporary storyline and one set in a 1726 London “molly house” (gay meeting place). Sodomy is somehow involved. The religious right are, predictably, already up in arms. I saw Ravenhill’s first big production, “Shopping and F***king”, back in 1998. I wasn’t a big fan, but it wasn’t because of the anal sex or the toplessness. I just thought it was a sucky play. It should’ve been called “Shopping, F***king, and Ramen Noodles”, because that’s the vision of my generation that it presented. And no amount of loud music and neon lights can paper over juvenile, sucky writing. But anyway, I still don’t see any problem with nationally-funded theater doing avant garde productions. I’m probably going to try to see his new one, just as an act of support for the RNT.