BWW Reviews: So Scandalous... THE DEEP THROAT SEX SCANDAL
Linda Lovelace, born Linda Boreman, was nicknamed (and not ironically) "Miss Holy Holy" in high school. The same school from which she graduated exactly six years before she starred in a short bestiality film entitled, "Dogarama," in 1971. The next year, Linda Lovelance became a house-hold name in the hardcore porn film, "Deep Throat," the same film that is the subject of David Bertolini's new play at 45 Bleeker Street Theatre.
The advertisements will tell you that "The Deep Throat Sex Scandal" shares the true story of the making of the world's first mainstream sex film, and in certain moments it attempts to do just that. However, there are more than a few holes (no pun intended) in the story of this scandal. Not the least of which is it's wildly anachronistic take on the porn industry itself.
For a play touted as the true story of the porn phenomenon, a middle finger to post-World War II conservatism and censorship - censorship abounds in the play's disregard for the road the porn industry has taken. In a George W. Bush-ian manner, the play constructs only two categories, separating the God-fearing porn haters from the lovers of freedom. In a night of absurd assertions, this perhaps the most questionable. Equating a blowjob in 1972 with the present-day multi-billion dollar pornography industry is more than a bit of a stretch. Pornography, at least as the majority of the audience will know it, is no longer society's underdog. In other words, the sexual revolution is over.
The show itself is an anomaly by traditional Off-Off Broadway standards. There are t-shirts being sold in the lobby alongside vintage posters of 'Debbie Does Dallas' priced at over $300. And within the show itself, there is a blank canvas, onto which a tech crew projects CGI-ish backgrounds appropriate to each scene. There is, at the top of the play, the United States Constitution. There is the salon where 'Deep Throat' director, Gerard Damiano (played by John-Charles Kelly) works during the day as a jovial hairdresser in Queens. There is the resort pool where scenes of Deep Throat were filmed with the underhanded manager's approval, and there is the nondescript public restaurant where Linda Lovelace's husband forces her to "practice her gag reflex" beneath the table while an uncomfortable audience looks on.
Lovelace, played by Lori Gardner, is sweet, mild-mannered, even shy. While on set, her husband, Chuck Traynor (Zach Wegner) hovers menacingly over her shoulder. Their relationship is an (unintentionally) eery caricature of abuse. Traynor screams and shoves and Lovelace obeys with her head bowed. Lovelace finds no solace in her brutal husband, nor in this comedy. In the play, her character is portrayed in a manner not unfamiliar to women in porn; she performs and disappears, her story largely unfinished.
Ultimately, the play is as uneven as the aftermath of the real 'Deep Throat' is complex. The real Lovelace later condemned her appearance in 'Deep Throat' and other porn films, likening her participation to rape. She joined the feminist anti-porn movement spearheaded by Andrea Dworkin, but eventually ceased her participation, claiming that she felt used. She died from injuries sustained in a car accident in 2002.
The porn industry has far surpassed the right to bare, not to mention its right to exist. To triumph in it's "small" beginnings seems a moot point. The most baffling aspect of which seems to be the play's even more triumphant thesis - without 'Deep Throat,' the play asserts, we wouldn't have 'Boogie Nights' or 'Debbie Does Dallas,' in a list of other productions made since, also including Tony Kushner's 'Angels in America.'
But things really didn't work out all that well. At least not for Lovelace, or, as the play tells us, for Harry Reems. Of course, none of this information finds much stage time in 'The Deep Throat Sex Scandal,' because complexity distracts from Bertolini's narrative of the bumbling, prudish government against some likable people just trying to have a good time. The play becomes more about it's own inspirational David and Goliath tale than about it's players.
But Bertolini may say whatever he wants about Harry Reems and Linda Lovelace. Because as his characters say proudly, just before they take a bow, "That's what being free is all about."
Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg
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