NEW YORK – While I appreciate fun, light-hearted romping in my entertainment as much as the next guy, there are some subjects which simply must be rendered in a dark, morose way in order to capture their true essence.
I’m not interested, for example, in a re-imagining of Taxi Driver in which Travis Bickle is a gregarious, chatty, fun-loving guy who doesn’t murder a bunch of people. I like my taxi drivers bathed in blood and ever-hungry for vengeance, thank you very much.
This is why I’m disappointed to read the reviews of Pretty Filthy, a new Broadway-style musical about the porn industry currently playing at the Abrons Arts Center in New York.
Sure, sure — it’s nice to hear the production puts a human face on adult performers, presenting them as people rather than stereotypical caricatures, and it’s heartening to know the troupe putting on the show (The Civilians) based their project on extensive interviews with actual porn performers. Part of me, though, was hoping to hear the musical was actually “pretty filthy.”
I’m not suggesting I was hoping for realism, because as someone who has worked in the adult industry for quite some time now, I must confess the day-to-day realities of the skin business are pretty mundane, honestly.
For all the undeniably compelling fucking, sucking, tugging and smacking that goes on in this business, what the final product doesn’t show the viewer is all the dull, monotonous process going on behind the scenes. Despite what you’ve heard about fluffers and glass-top tables covered in heaping piles of cocaine, the truth of the matter is the average porn set is actually a pretty tame and boring scene.
No, the porn industry I’d like to see on stage (whether on- or off-Broadway) isn’t the porn industry as it actually is, but the porn industry as it exists in the mind of people like Phil Burress (once an avid porn fan, by the way, according to Phil himself), or Donna Rice-Hughes (who totally wasn’t fucking Gary Hart back in the day, honest to God).
I want lots of ominous string music in D-minor, suicidal soliloquies by despondent and drug-addicted double-D damsels in distress, scumbag agents modeled on Shakespeare’s Iago, sleazy studio heads with unbuttoned shirts and gold chains, and at least one scene in which an irate father of a would-be porn star gets into a knife fight with Ron Jeremy, choreographed in a way that mimics the vibe of West Side Story.
When it comes to casting, naturally I want star power, but it’s much more important to me the performers have gravitas. I’m thinking Randy West played by Ed Harris, James Deen portrayed by a thoroughly strung-out James Franco, and Penelope Cruz channeling her Mirtha Jung role in Blow to provide an appropriately discomfiting Lupe Fuentes.
Great stage drama doesn’t require only great acting, though. It all starts with a strong story — which is why David Mamet clearly is the man for the job.
Not only does Mamet have the writing chops to deliver the bleak, dismal story arc our dramatic exploration of the porn industry must have, but he’s also a master of creating tension and friction between well-developed characters. Plus, as you are already aware if you have seen Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet is not exactly averse to using the word “fuck” liberally, something which will certainly come in handy when scripting sex scenes.
Of course, there’s no reason to limit the new horizons of porn’s dramatic expressions to the stage. This is a trend that could go in all kinds of fantastic new directions and encompass a wide variety of mediums and forms. I’m not sure whether Evan Stone can ice skate, for example, but I bet my bottom dollar he’d be willing to give it a shot if it meant a six-month gig doing Pirates on Ice.
Less elaborate productions would be welcome too, of course. Hell, if people will line up around the block to watch a relatively nobody perform The Vagina Monologues, just imagine the crowd we would draw if Tori Black and Alexis Texas were to carry off a vagina dialogue, so to speak.
Slightly disappointed though I may be with Pretty Filthy, if it proves to be the leading edge of a trend in which the porn industry spreads its legs … er, wings … and soars to new artistic heights, then I’m all for it, even if it is “surprisingly wholesome” as the New York Post put it.
The sky is the limit here, folks. Who knows? Maybe soon we’ll have porn dinner theater and porn movie trivia night at our local sports bars.
That said, it’s probably wise to stop short of opening a nationwide chain of “Fuck E Cheese” pizza parlors…
