Can pornography be ethically and economically produced if it supports philanthropic endeavors and takes inspiration from a Whole Foods supermarket business model? And does pornography factor into causing domestic violence, or is that just an easy target to place blame and condemnation rather than seeing it as a safe outlet for exploring fantasies?
These are just a few questions explored in two ongoing productions in Chicago tied to largely heterosexual pornography. Although The Gift Theatre's world premiere of Dirty by Andrew Hinderaker (Suicide, Inc., I Am Going to change the World) and Interrobang Theatre Project's production of the 2005 revised edition of Hot 'n' Throbbing by lesbian playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive, The Baltimore Waltz) are not officially connected, the issues the two shows bring up are certainly worth taking note.
Dirty focuses on young venture capitalist Matt (Michael Patrick Thornton), who teams with pregnant feminist wife Katie (Hillary Clemens) to create a pornography company that caters to ethically minded adults. Said adults are the kind who always buy organic food and wouldn't mind paying more knowing that the majority of porn proceeds go toward a foundation to aid women worldwide to escape from prostitution and other sex trafficking.
But in the drive to take on the existing porn companies and increase the philanthropic endowment, Matt and Katie make compromises that come back to bite them—particularly when their initial moralistic guidelines are tested when they happen upon a bisexual 21-year-old mixed-race law student named Mikayla (Mouzam Makkar), whom they figure can become their company's main personality and meal ticket.
Dirty certainly works as a dark comic drama where an unconventional "what if" idea perks up audience interest as it is played out to a conflict-filled resolution. Clocking in at more than two and a half hours, Dirty could use some trimming, even if Hinderaker and director Jonathan Berry undeniably succeed at keeping the audience engrossed to see if everything will pan out or not for his characters producing "ethical pornography."
If Hinderaker's Dirty is a straightforward dramatic narrative, Vogel's Hot 'n' Throbbing is a much more complexly multilayered (or jumbled, if you prefer) affair.
Vogel wrote Hot 'n' Throbbing as a response to attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990s over "pornographic" content. With her play, Vogel aims to point out that violence is much more destructive and insidious than pornography, but the dramatic situation she creates in Hot 'n' Throbbing to make that case doesn't fit so neatly together.
The main heroine of Hot 'n' Throbbing is Charlene (Christina Hall), a stressed-out mother with two teenage kids who supports her family by writing erotic feminist fiction. Just as Charlene is pushing up against an important deadline, she becomes seriously distracted.
First, there's plenty of sparring with her kids (petulantly played by Andrew Goetten and Stella Martin), while her fictional sexualized characters (played by Griffin Sharps and Casey Wortmann) become personified and slink about her living room. But most frightening is the arrival of Charlene's estranged and abusive husband, Clyde (Matthew David Gellin), who bursts into the house and tries to sweet-talk her to letting him return home or have a much-needed sexual tryst.
Alas, Vogel doesn't tie her ideas neatly together in a fully coherent fashion for Hot 'n' Throbbing to make sense. An early act of violence that allows for Charlene to get the upper hand on Clyde feels like an unlikely device that allows for a negotiated back-and-forth conversation. This incident dials down the initial fear and terror drummed up by Clyde's forced-entry arrival.
Hence, the whole tenuous question of pornography's connection to domestic violence doesn't get satisfactorily explored in Hot 'n' Throbbing, even if Vogel's script does keep an audience on edge with its blend of heightened sexual theatricality and tense fear (which director Jeffry Stanton and the Interrobang Theatre Project cast and crew largely succeed at in their stark and moody physical production).
It's interesting to note that both Dirty and Hot 'n' Throbbing largely omit exploring LGBT pornography, save for the hinted-at girl-on-girl action intended only to provide titillation for straight male audiences in Hinderaker's play. But it's also ironic that the only out-and-out nudity in one of the productions is that of a male. Both Dirty and Hot 'n' Throbbing deserve credit for attempting to dramatize questions about pornography, taking on moral notions of exploitation, freedom and objectification.
Andrew Hinderaker's Dirty continues through Nov. 18 at The Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee Ave., Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $25; call 773-283-7071 or visit www.thegifttheatre.org for more information.
Interrobang Theatre Project's Hot 'n' Throbbing by Paula Vogel continues through Oct. 21 at the Raven Theatre Complex's West Stage, 6157 N. Clark St. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3:30 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $25; visit www.interrobangtheatreproject.org .
