Thomas, the adapter/director of a Broadway version of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel of dominance and submission, is tired and tetchy after a long and fruitless day of auditions for the role of “mistress” Vanda. Suddenly, amid a conveniently portentous thunderstorm, a young woman appears; she is too... well, just generally too to be true. Even her name, she says, is Vanda. Thomas obviously has no inclination towards casting her, but over the course of a prolonged reading interspersed with discussion of topics ranging from his fiancée to The Bacchae, she wins him round and... What? Really? “Spoilers”? Is there anything I could say at this point that would be remotely surprising or revealing? Perhaps “They play Monopoly”. But they don’t.

If nothing else, the soft-core veneer on David Ives’ two-hander about sex (as in -ism) and power would ensure a healthy number of bums on seats. But Ives, director Patrick Marber, actors Natalie Dormer and David Oakes (both TV royalty: he Prince Ernest in Victoria, she Queen Margaery in Game Of Thrones) must be keenly aware that the production opens at a moment when there is something-else in abundance, namely the Harvey Weinstein sexual-assault furore. It might seem perfect timing, but in reality it’s anything but.

The script circles around the now commonly understood notion that in a dom/sub relationship it’s the “bottom” party who has the real control, even as they seem to be ceding it all. Dormer’s Vanda (Vanda the actress, not Vanda the mistress) is quietly aware of this throughout, playing a game that has one more twist to it than either Thomas or the play-within-a-play’s character Severin realises, until the final thunderbolt and the unsurprising ending. It’s a wonderful performance. But.

In reading women’s responses to the Weinstein allegations – not least the shockingly widespread “me too” meme on social media regarding victimhood of sexual assault – I’ve seen discussion of correction (not in the sleazy S&M sense), rectification, improvement, cure... all aspects of lifting our culture as a whole above this level. I haven’t seen a solitary woman speak of revenge. As all too often on this topic, Ives’ play thinks it is taking women’s side in calling out sexual denigration both verbal and physical, but in fact it expresses an ironically, dishearteningly, ignorantly male approach to the issue. As such, it risks doing outright damage to public discourse at a crucial moment.

Written for the Financial Times.