Throbbing, Fantastic But Flaccid

THEATER

Hot 'n' Throbbing (Because Obscenity Begins at Home)

by Paul Vogel

directed by Anne Bogart

at the hasty Pudding Theater

through May 21

One expects to be shocked by a play titled Hot 'n' Throbbing, or at least one hopes for it. Hopes increase when the play opens showing a woman in a strip booth at one side of the stage and her announcer in a booth opposite. These lewd stakes are raised still higher with Diane D'Aquila's opening monologue at her computer as she writes pornography to support her two children. The play begins, at such a pitch that one wonders how playwright Paula Vogel will pull it off.

Hot 'n' Throbbing has the bracketed subtitle "Because Obscenity Begins at Home," yet even without this, Vogel's mission would be clear. She attempts to knit the splintering of the American family to the degradation of women in the porn industry.

As we meet the kids, we are given a standard glimpse at the dysfunctional family. D'Aquila plays the mother of the sexually blossoming Leslie Ann (Amy Louise Lammert) and the nerdy, pre-pubescent, Calvin (Randall Jaynes). Leslie Anne insists on being called Leila and wearing tight, tight jeans in which Calvin tauntingly claims he can see her panty lines. Poor Calvin doesn't have a life-it's a Friday night and he would rather stay home with Mom writing porn. While the situation would make a good Oprah topic, D'Aquila's human portrayal along with the well-paced flashes of commentary from the booths, produce a compelling force that keeps us watching.

Enter Dad, drunk. Once the he kids have gone out for the evening so that Mom can get some porn done, her ex-husband arrives on the scene. Violating a restraining order, he busts through the door only to be shot in the rear end by his loving ex-wife. Jack Willis plays the out-of-work alcoholic battering husband, Clyde, in possession of the coolest stage effect known to mankind. His butt keeps bleeding throughout the whole play. It starts with a little dribble in the seat of his jeans and proceeds to one giant, bloody, backside stain. Although his entrance is worth it just for the exquisite gore, it signals the death of the play.

Vogel employs Clyde to explore the well-charted territory of abusive relationship. Drunk and staggering upon entering, he quickly sobers up to have sensitive conversations about his inner hopes and returning to school. Undoubtedly, being shot in the ass is a sobering occurrence, but we have a hard time believing that this is the same violent man who mandates the possession of a gun. He is simply too intelligent.

We also aren't convinced that D'Aquila, who has gone to the trouble of getting a court order and a gun to protect herself, would really offer her alcoholic husband a drink while protesting that she doesn't want to engage in "ennabling behavior." Every actor must ask themselves why they are in a room, but neither Willis or D'Aquila account for the fact that she's armed and he's bleeding and they aren't' on their way to the hospital. The formula dictates that these relationships create hard-to-break patterns, but we don't see it from either Vogel or the actors.

The actors in the booths at the side are an alternately intriguing and confusing complement to the action. A quiz in the program serves as a guide to some of their obscure refrences ("Get our of the house! Get out of the--" is from: Ulysses or "Amityville Horror"?). These references are ineffectively used to deflate the porn industry's claim that the lines between art and trash are blurred and can't be legislated. Most of the time the gyrating and gasping of the booth people is merely white noise for the family scene. It is only at the end that Vogel manipulates the booths to their full dramatic potential, driving home the parallelism between violence in the home and violence in pornography.

Essentially, Hot 'n' Throbbing should be a wonderful show. The production values of the American Reperatory Theatre's staging are excellent. Christine Jones' set accomodates the needs of the play and of the space while magnificently supporting Vogel's theory that home and porn are interdependent. Anne Bogart's direction never falters and elicits high quality performances from all the actors. The individual elements are so well done that it is a shame they do not add up to a satisfying whole.

Vogel in the end does not come through for us. The pose the pornography and domestic violence are inextricably linked is not supported by her script. The two are shown together on the same stage, but they never really connect in the way that Vogel hypothesizes. Without this driving universalism, Hot 'n' Throbbing becomes just another movie of the week, only better acted. It is truly unfortunate that Hot 'n' Throbbing can't raise itself about its soft prime time roots, the blood is so cool.