Pornography
He who looks deserves what he gets: Nothing.
What is Pornography?
At first I thought that perhaps I didn’t understand pornography despite having watched a lot of it over the years. I jumped over to Onelook, the online free dictionary and learned a few things I didn’t know about pornography.
- The word comes from Greek (where else?) and means “writing about prostitutes.” This was a pretty honorable profession to the ancient Greeks, so what happened?
- Somewhere western civilization decided that prostitution was something to be eschewed and spurned. Prostitutes themselves fell in stature and esteem. I assume that this is true for both male and female prostitutes since rest assured; both types exist, although the male variety is probably much smaller in number for reasons that beg yet another blog at another time.
- The word “pornography” came to mean something more specific. For example:
- We added the caveat that pornography must “[intend] to cause sexual excitement.” But there is yet another definition of pornography in the same source cited:
the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
- This makes the word a little more useful in that we don’t have to limit ourselves to sexual excitement alone. Any old excitement will do.
Finally, Pornography is the name of a play written by British playwright Simon Stephens and currently enjoying sold-out performances at Steep Theatre Company just East of the Berwyn Red Line stop on Chicago’s north side. I went to see Pornography this past Saturday evening and came away with some rather intense emotional reactions of my own. In that sense, the play succeeds admirably in agreement with the last definition cited above.
Unfortunately, my intense emotional reaction was negative as I walked out the door of the theatre and became increasingly negative the more I thought about the play and the more I researched what others have found in their own analyses.
The play doesn’t really tell a story, not that any play needs to do so although it makes life a little easier for your audience if there is some thread of continuity upon which to cling. It consists of a series of seven vignettes that may be presented in whatever order the whim of the director dictates. The vignettes take place in London over the seven day period July 1 through July 7, 2005. On July 7, 2005 three young men detonated bombs in London’s Underground railway system with a fourth young man, having been thwarted in his attempt by the closing of one of the lines, detonated his bomb on a bus about fifty minutes later.
What does the play Pornography tell us?
I had to rely on published interviews with the playwright to gain even a glimmer of understanding about his intentions. In Stephens’ view the production and consumption of pornography objectifies people. This explains the title of the play. But it is more than the consumption and production of pornography that Stephens is portraying; he is portraying a group of four young men who feel objectified, alienated and distanced from those around them. According to Stephens, “We live in pornographic times.”[ii]
The play illustrates the perceived distance between the terrorists who detonated their bombs on July 7 and what Stephens believed was a necessary outcome to that perception of objectification and distance, e.g., the taking of 52 innocent lives.
The Guardian has chosen the following lead for the article cited: “Simon Stephens makes audiences confront their own guilt.” Whether that is the product of some hack headline writer or the author (Lynn Gardner) of the piece, it is in no way supported by Stephens’ comments in the article. Stephens seems to feel that the outcome was inevitable but stops short of attaching guilt. Who could possibly be guilty? The audience? How about “society?” These are the absurd constructs of the Guardian and Stephens is too smart to fall into that trap. Individuals objectify other individuals. Groups do not objectify individuals and this difference is profound in its ability to differentiate between extreme liberal reactions to acts of terrorism and the classical liberal approach that holds the individual to be the atom of civilization.
Stephens does want us to understand that these are important considerations; not the least of which is the possibility that yet more disenfranchised individuals will follow the same futile path of destruction and terrorism. He offers no solutions, only questions.
How was the production?
With some minor flaws, the production was superb. I have never seen a bad play at Steep. Since the cast is listed in alphabetical rather than appearance order and since none of the characters are identified by name, I have difficulty recalling who was who in the play. I believe it ws Kendra Thulin who presented the opening monologue. Despite I very good British dialect I had great difficulty in understanding what she was saying. This was largely a matter of voice timbre and projection, not the dialect. Needless to say, this got things off to a very slow start for me and it wasn’t until the second monologue, convincingly and superbly presented by Rudy Galvan that I was able to settle in and begin to follow the character development (which is really all the play has to offer).
Humorously, the title page of the program states: “Steep Theatre Company proudly presents Simon Stephen’s…” instead of the correct formation of the possessive. I am reminded of a similar misspelling many years ago by a company that sold yachting gear from its Elston Avenue headquarters in Chicago. “Lands’ End” was a printer’s error that went undetected until thousands of catalogs had been printed. Lacking the money to reprint and rebind the book, they went with “Lands’ End” and the rest is history. I vaguely recall a clearly missed lighting cue that left the actor yammering away in the darkness until the technical people got it corrected.
Chelsea Warren’s Set Design was nothing short of inspired. Steep is small and it is difficult to repeatedly design small, compact sets that don’t look exactly like all the other small, compact sets you’ve seen. Chelsea was up to the challenge.
I was somewhat distracted by Mike Tutaj’s video design which I found more distracting than anything. A number of large monitors were suspended above the stage turned so that everyone in the audience could see at least one of them. Before the opening curtain they displayed some interesting “facts” about the forthcoming vignettes while during the production the screens displayed seemingly random and bothersome rows of flashing lights. I assume these lights were intended to mimic the passing of cars on the London Underground but I found them more of an irritation than a compliment.
I also need to mention Caroline Neff, who I have seen in a number of other Steep productions. Besides taking a role in Pornography she also acted as Casting Director. Her superb abilities as an actress never disappoint. Her performance in Pornography was no exception.
Then what’s wrong with this play?
Basically, it is way too difficult to understand this play without doing a great deal of research. Robin Witt’s Directors [sic] Notes were of little help. Witt repeated what she saw as the recurring lament in Pornography three times: “Are you laughing or are you crying?” This phrase still makes no sense to me after repeatedly trying to integrate it into my understanding of the play.
The other major flaw with the play is the lack of any markers that enables the audience to make connections that run something like: Pornography—Objectification—Disenfranchised Young Men—Senseless Acts of Terrorism. It is simply too vaguely written to be understood even upon subsequent reflection.
While Stephens’ rationale has its adherents it should also be mentioned that not everyone shares the notion that sexually explicit images result in objectification; that assertion is made by extreme liberals and feminists. There is another view shared by many that sexually explicit images are no different from other kinds of celebrity images. Does that mean that we objectify someone like Madonna, or Lady Gaga, or Justin Beiber, or John Wayne? Regardless of your view of sexually explicit images and objectification you could probably understand the argument if it had been presented more coherently. In this regard, the playwright has failed his audience.
Once we get past the objectification argument we might then examine the remaining steps to the puzzle of Pornography. Unfortunately, the balance of the equation is as opaque as the beginning, and we must seek our own epiphany, probably using the internet. Ironically, in Stephens’ view, the internet contributes to isolation and objectification. His is a very tenuous and loosely constructed argument, indeed. It could be more defensible if Pornography had developed its ideas more carefully.
Would I recommend seeing this play? You bet I would. Now that you’ve read this far you’re probably prepared to enjoy the production. In fact, you’ll probably get more out of it than I did.
[i] Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 11th Edition
[ii] Gardner, Lynn. The Finger Pointer (article) published Monday, August 4, 2008 in The Guardian. Downloaded 2011-09-01 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/04/edinburghfestival.festivals
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