Hey folks, welcome back to my Porno Chic blog as we get closer to the opening of this all new production of my play. We are deep in rehearsals and everything is going great and the cast are truly incredible. This week however I wanted to discuss something that has been on my mind for the past few months, bringing this play back in the current climate of Me Too movement etc, so here we go, let’s get serious, let’s get in to it.
Since we first opened Porno Chic back in 2014 to rave reviews and sold out audiences many people have wanted the show to return. It came back for 2 separate sell out award winning productions in 2016 and now this whole new production is ready to play throughout 2018/19. When we did the play in 2016 I remember getting a tweet blasting me for promoting an industry that abuses women, I tried to message the lady back but as with most aggressive tweets she blocked me meaning I could not respond. I did an open later to her where I tried to explain the play (she clearly had not seen it) and that was that. However, this time I realised we are doing this play that contains nudity, sex, awful domestic violence and abuse for the first time since the Me Too Movement began (a movement I fully support) and yet again, we had a tweet, somebody I did not know, somebody who blocked me straight away, so here I am again, defending my play.
Theatre is an art form where we should be able to explore everything just as movies do, the good the bad and the ugly. From plays about Paedophilia and murder (I have written or produced plays based on both of those subjects and never heard a negative word about the content) to others about celebrated faces and positive change, theatre should be a platform to be brave, bold and take on at times controversial stories. Here is the thing though, no story is 100 percent good or bad, no person is an angel without having a bit of the devil in them and no play will be for everybody, that’s art, its subjective, however you can only have an opinion about art if you actually see it. For some reason though theatre still has its guard up when it comes to the more ‘controversial’ things, of course it still does happen, but not much in commercial plays, after all, safe sells right? I like to think Porno Chic proves that theory wrong, audiences want things that challenge as well, they want to explore all sides of life, not just those with a happy ending, audiences are way smarter than that and writers should keep that in mind. A couple of years ago a new musical opened in America based on the book/movie American Psycho. The musical that had played a small production in London before heading to Broadway was a unique revelation, it pushed theatre forward, it redefined the leading man and its number one emotion was arrogance. Critics in New York were mixed (some of the negative was truly head scratching) and the show closed early, it was devastating, finally, a musical that broke all the rules and it failed, but it still took a chance and people who watched the show loved it, it also caused debate, to me, that is great theatre.
First of all, let me make one thing clear, Porno Chic is not about the ‘adult industry’ as at the time an industry did not exist, it was a few short loops on 8mm film that played at a few of the porno theatres in New York, housewives and hookers would shoot them, some for cash, some for excitement, an industry would have looked a million miles away at that time. It was Deep Throat that helped create an industry, did that industry have bad apples in? of course, were some women (and men) exploited? Yes of course. However, we don’t ‘celebrate’ the negative in Porno Chic, we simply show it, we refuse to avoid it. The negative was not the film, it wasn’t the sex, it wasn’t the actors in those movies, it was outside forces that turned things ugly. Today the adult industry is still huge, I have female and male friends who work in it and they love their job, they are safe, they get good money, they are smart and focused, just like anybody in any job.
It’s the outside uneducated perceptions of the adult industry that tend to be wrong, most people who work in legit porn today are happy to do so, yes a few will be ‘slumming it’ to pay the bills etc but this is a legitimate industry offering a service that so many of us watch. I’ve spoken to a lot of porn actors during the creation of this play and have not come across one who did not enjoy what they were doing, today the adult industry is like any other industry.
I think the negative attitudes towards it have more to do with the individual who screams it down rather than the industry itself, enough people already slate the industry without knowing much about it, I won’t add my voice to the crowd when I don’t agree. The industry I’m referring to is the one that shoots in studios, pays actors well, is safe and friendly, I think some people like to put other things (forced prostitution, immigrants forced in to sex work etc) in the same bracket as the adult industry and the two could not be further removed from each other.
In terms of Porno Chic the world was a different place back then, New York was different, it was seedy and dangerous, porn was very much underground and normally run by the mob. Did some girls get exploited during this time? Of course they did sadly, many were prostitutes who were just trying to survive and saw no way out, some however did it because they enjoyed it, even back then, women were wanting to explore sex. That however is not our play.
The two victims in this play are the two stars of Deep Throat, Harry Reems and Linda Lovelace, two people who helped changed the world when it came to sex but who were ultimately punished for doing so even though we have all the reaped the benefit of the things they did (and that director/writer Gerry Damiano did).
Those classic mainstream movies from the 70s to today that feature sex scenes would not be here if attitudes towards sex had not started to change in the 60s and 70s, Deep Throat played a huge part in that as well as showing people that sex was not something seedy, that sex itself and sexual desires especially in women could and should be celebrated, that SHOCK HORROR women could achieve an orgasm as well and that sex was just as much about their desires as it was about the man’s desire.
Linda was for sure exploited in the worst kind of way, the mob exploited her, the media exploited her but most importantly her husband exploited her. In fact, ‘exploited’ would be the first word that would come to mind when you mention Linda Lovelace. Her story is harrowing and tragic, she says herself she was gullible and scared of a man who beat and abused her like clockwork. My heart always breaks for Linda knowing the pain she went through and the things she was forced to do. 
The genuine pornographers of the time though like Damiano did not, he treated her kind and well and never forced her to do anything. Linda herself even though she went through hell before and after the film said how much she enjoyed being on the set of Deep Throat, she felt special, part of a team and got to laugh and enjoy herself, something her husband never let her do.
Yes, Linda was exploited, exploited by a violent sociopath of a husband. So maybe we shouldn’t do plays or TV shows about domestic violence, shining a light on that because after all, those men exploit those women every day? Linda was beaten and abused, forced in to all kinds of awful things, but that wasn’t by an industry, it was by a husband. Linda was also exploited by the women’s lib, once she turned her back on porn the women’s lib used her and exploited her story to get their points across. They paraded her out on TV shows alongside Gloria Steinem to say ‘look how she was exploited’ whilst doing the exact same thing to her. Linda would go on to say that the women’s lib turned out to be just as bad as the men who used her, everybody used Linda, it does not mean her story should not be told. Lovelace wrote a book, a graphic, shocking painful book that brutally retold her terrifying abuse, a movie would come out that took so much abuse out and made Linda look like an idiot, she wasn’t, she was naive, she was weak, she was easily led, but she wasn’t stupid. The movie watered down everything, showed nothing of substance but did have some great performances. I wanted to show the horror she went through, and show it honestly.
Harry Reems, the other star of Deep Throat did it willingly and also enjoyed it, he and Linda laughed together a lot and the pair were treated very well during filming, who didn’t treat them well were the people against porn, the ones who said it was exploitive, those people used Linda, sacrificed Harry and tried to vilify everybody involved, that was the public, not the ‘industry’. 
Nobody forced or exploited the other 2 female stars of the film either, Dolly Sharp answered an ad and Caroline Conners loved the film and continued on in porn afterwards. The ones that hurt them after the film was released were the ones who shamed them for daring to have sex on film, again, not the industy.
Porno Chic is set around the early 70s, a time when sexual liberation and Women’s liberation were breaking through, women were celebrating sex and sexual freedom, the film Deep Throat for all its silly storylines was addressing the fact that women also have sexual needs and desires and it’s not just about the men. Ironically without the women’s lib movement or the sexual freedom movement Deep Throat would not have existed, they allowed it to exist.
A lot of horrible and shady things happened to some women and MEN in porn back in the 70s, the people who run it (as I mentioned earlier the organised crime gangs) did not care what happened to the performers before and after the film and why they were doing the films in the first place (many were horrified when they found out Linda’s husband had forced her to do so many awful things), to vilify a whole industry though on some bad apples is unfair. Deep Throat gave birth to a legitimate industry, not men in basements forcing women to do something on film, but a studio where women and men who wanted to film could. It became about desire and fantasy, marketing porn and also trying to break barriers down that so many had (have) up when it comes to sex and exploring or promoting sex on film, sex still remains the one big taboo, why? Who knows. We are willing to accept violence on screen to the degree that films like Hostel were labelled torture porn, it would still make millions however, but if you show two people having sex in a porn movie it’s still outrageous.
As for actual porn it’s still seen as something dirty and underground, some women outside of porn will scream that it exploits women whilst labelling the performers bimbo’s or whores, some men against pornography will hire escorts and watch mass amounts of porn in private. People will say ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that’ but have no problem watching it alone at night, our attitudes towards sex, women in porn who enjoy sex and the industry as a whole is still somewhat of the dark dirty thing that we dare not talk about, it’s a strange attitude, one I will never understand.
The villain’s in Porno Chicare pointed out and vilified, but we won’t vilify what Gerry, Harry, Linda, Dolly etc did when they did Deep Throat. Gerry wanted to bring real sex in to mainstream pictures, to show the world that sex isn’t something dirty, it’s something beautiful, that you don’t have to be a Barbie doll to be beautiful on screen (Linda looked nothing like an adult star but her girl next door look sold you the fantasy that ordinary women can be as sexually liberated as they want to be). Our play is not a ‘love letter’ to the golden age of porn (though we will celebrate the GOOD it did), it doesn’t ‘celebrate’ in anyway the awful things done to Linda, it simply tells a story that is bigger than just an industry or a movie, it tells the story of a sexual revolution and the fear and hatred that came along with it.
Sex, nudity and the human body is nothing to be ashamed of, pornography is nothing to be ashamed of and Porno Chic is not celebrating or exploiting any women, its simply telling the story of a moment in time, a moment that had both good and bad elements. Our reviews that were 5 star and rave reviews pointed out that we balance the negative with the positive, its set around a political change and we see the world through the performer’s eyes. Also this play is co-written by myself and my female co-writer Adele Stanhope who would have no interest in doing a play that was celebrating or promoting the mistreatment of women through porn, the mistreatment here comes from the hands of Linda’s husband Chuck, the right wing and the government who tried to destroy these performers’ lives.
In this all new production I have thought a lot about the current Me Too movement, would audiences see these actors naked on stage, performing sexual acts (faked of course) and be horrified at me, accuse me of exploiting these actors for the sake of a play? I have had many conversations with the cast about this, the cast are confused by it, confused by my thinking, ‘you can’t tell a story about Porn without showing sex and nudity’, that’s what they say, we are all on the same page. Nudity and sex might seem a bit shocking in the play to some, the play for sure won’t be for everybody due to this, and that’s fine, but that’s on the individual’s opinions, not myself or my cast.
I also don’t think that just because we are in a time where women are rightly standing up against abuse, that this story suddenly should not be told, that’s a huge disservice to the people who went through this. Harry has been all but forgotten even though he took on the US government as well as starring in the most successful adult movie ever, everybody would instead remember Linda Lovelace, his troubled co-star. As for Linda, whilst this is not her story (Harry takes us through parts of her journey where their paths connect in the story) but I also wanted to show the true horror of her abuse, graphically, painfully and shockingly. When I watch the rehearsals myself and the cast don’t really find the sex stuff that shocking, but the abuse is a different story. If people think it’s too violent towards Linda, too brutal, then good, because that’s only 1 percent of what Linda actually felt when she was going through it.
The three amazing women in my play (Celine Constantinides, Anna Hickling and Kate Byron) are strong, powerful, free thinking people who want to tell this story just as much as I do. Yes they get topless, yes they have sex scenes (as do the men in the show) but that’s a tiny aspect of their roles, the women they are playing are fascinating, good or bad, and these amazing women have brought these characters to life through pure talent, I hope that’s what people focus on. It’s also interesting to us that the nudity etc by the men has never been under question, it’s never come under fire. Richard Allen who is the lead and been with this play from day 1 drops his trousers full frontal in the show and nobody has ever said anything. Men who ended up filming these porn films in the early 70s also came along for different reasons, money, enjoyment but also through dire need or worse, some men who starred in these movies that were brought in by the mafia would vanish, never to be seen again. If you want to speak out against pornography then remember that the men in the films also have a story.
When porn became an industry after Deep Throat (a film that was labelled Porno Chic by the New York Times) it was beaten down by every government official, the police, the conservative media and the president (Nixon) and that just ran the industry underground allowing bad characters such as the mafia to take control of it. Dolly Sharp one of the stars of Deep Throat ran away and went in to hiding after the film came out because people were attacking them so hard. The mafia did not care about these actors situations, they just wanted them to film and to hell with anything else, they forced and beat people, they sold and raped people and they stole over 600 million dollars of the movie Deep Throat’s profits. These people were the bad apples, the filmmakers like Gerry Damiano just wanted to make a movie, he loved the actors and crew, he was living his dream.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the sex, nudity and violence is viewed through these new eyes that so many of us now have in this current climate. However, it was decided early on that we could NOT censor the show, we could not ‘tone it down’ as that is not what this play is, and it’s not who I am as a writer and director. So together with my amazing cast and crew we are going to give you the best possible production we can of this play, all we can hope is that people view it with their eyes wide open.
So I guess this blog is my official response to said negative tweet (though I get a lot more characters here than on a tweet) so if the person who sent that tweet is reading this I hope that clears up your misconceptions about our play, after all it’s just telling another story as so many plays do, that’s why we love what we do.
Co writer/director Craig Hepworth.
Porno Chic returns for three nights at The Footlights Theatre, Salford Quays this September 6th - 8th. Tickets can be purchased below, please note it’s not suitable for under 16s. PLEASE NOTE THE SHOW SOLD OUT THIS WEEK SO WE HAVE RELEASED 20 EXTRA SEATS, THAT’S ALL THE REMAINS SO BOOK TODAY.
Ticket site - https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/vertigotheatreproductions
Vertigo Site - http://www.vertigotheatreproductions.co.uk
Porno Chic site - http://www.vertigotheatreproductions.co.uk/Porno/
Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwC5KFLiILg
