The MADC has just ended a run of Elaine May’s Adult Entertainment – a play that centres around a group of porn actors and their efforts to write their own scripts. Porn was never an easy subject to broach, particularly in a community where the words “tightly-knit”, “gossip” and “moral indignation” stick out like ugly sores on the face of any possible semblance of liberal independence.
Unfortunately, I was not able to view any of the MADC performances and so I am unable to tell you whether the MADC troupe carried the play better than most other performances worldwide that did not seem to attract very good reviews (though apparently May’s script might have a lot to answer for that). What I am sure of is that once the MADC actors (and may I emphasise the Amateur – as in not professional – in that acronym) shed their characters’ masks and stopped living the porn dream in those moments of suspended reality, they returned to being very normal (or rather, very complex) human beings. In all probability they go about their different jobs and lives with the same clumsy haphazardness as you or I might.
Once their make-make up levels are reduced to “time for a selfie in aid of cancer research”, the actors stop being actors. They stop being porn stars who supposedly won prizes for “Best Anal” and become executives, salesemen, insurance brokers, managers or teachers. Some might even double up giving a hand in drama school imparting some of the experience they might have gained on stage to young(er) hopefuls.
I do say shed. In our tiny world though, where the aforementioned ugly warts of “gossip” and “moral indignation” run a fine thread through our social fabric, the authors might often find that their artistic exploits (or even failures) hang on to them well beyond their exit (stage left). They are shadowed by the stamp of whatever character whose shoes they might have filled for those fleeting instances on stage. This happens especially in the case of whatever goes for controversial these days – think nudity or offensive behaviour. It’s not just censorship that posed a problem to our artistic community (wherever you may think the source of that censorship may be) but also the consequences of living a life surrounded by the liberal arts. Others might not be too impressed.
Heaven forbid that your scene includes nudity or that you had to fill the shoes of a mentally depraved character. Forget the exploration of the human psyche through a literary interpretation – no, their judgement is that this is sick. Worse still, you are incurable. You may take yourself off the stage but your sickness hangs on. “Did you see him nude on stage? Was it full frontal? Did he really speak like that about wanting to kill a baby? She has no shame standing there with her knockers gazing straight at my husband – we had front row seats you know! I’m sure she/he enjoyed every second of being in that role”. It gets worse. “How could her employers keep her on after seeing her in the buff?”
Of course there is an alternative to all this madness. You could bear in mind that each and every one goes through a life that is full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Some event (or recurring event) such as a broken relationship, a death in the family, a history of abuse, domestic dissonance could end up unearthing an ugly side of a person. Life tends to throw things at us and does not discriminate between actors, local councillors or lavatory attendants. Life happens and man, being the free-thinking animal that he is, has a very complex way of dealing with such moments.
Alea iacta est, the dice are cast. Actors, plumbers, soldiers, – whoever – at some point in their life will be faced with ugly moments and difficult decisions. To link such a bad patch to a profession or a performance or more specifically to whatever mask is worn on stage is pure balderdash.
Never can a judgement be so shallow as one that reduces a person to one flat dimension, ignoring all his or her complexities and realities. Even in the legal world where a judgement must perforce be given at some point, formulae and principles have been developed in order not to judge too summarily and especially to avoid pre-judgement – and as we know, even the legal world is not infallible. It is nigh impossible to judge unless all circumstances are known and a fuller picture is to be had.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(Jaques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII)
