REVIEW: Porn.Cake | Griffin Theatre, Sydney
The cast of Porn.Cake | Griffin Theatre
Let them eat cake, said Marie Antoinette, supposedly, in one phrase betraying her remoteness from her subjects. Or, if you want to be a stickler, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”. OK, so the attribution may be as apocryphal as the exodus, but it seems, even way back when, confectionery was liable to sublimate more substantial aspirations.
The characters in Vanessa Bates’ latest pay for Griffin Theatre might’ve just as well have stuffed their faces with cake and spared us the dialogue altogether, for all the good it did, insofar as exposition is concerned. Bates’ play is symptomatic of a trend, thankfully not so very widespread as yet, that would purport clipped phrases, unfinished thoughts and sentences, et al, are enough. Enough for the intelligentsia, or those who would sel-appoint themselves as such, to intone, with a knowing superiority’s, ‘I see where she’s going with this’.
I mean, sure, I’m all for flattering the intelligence of the audience, by leaving a few blanks to fill and dots to join. But when we go ’round and ’round the mulberry bush, in a series of groundhog day vignettes involving two (apparently) middle-class couples bored to the back teeth with their lot, and reach the point where the exchanges are as banal as “am I attractive?”, to which the barbed, baited reply (albeit subsconciously so) is “sure, you’re still attractive”, I’m not sure there’s much point in it all. I mean, yes, middle-class conversations and lifestyles can be and are banal, but we know that. Couples in long-term relationships struggle to maintain affection, lust and respect for each other. We know that. The point is, I didn’t get anything new out of this play. No insights,let alone surprises or revelations.
Yes, but it’s told in a new way, you say. Well, yes. A lot of cakes were harmed in the making of this play. And, yes, I do like the big, bold, graphic idea of people hungering for more (more affection, love, sex, respect, meaning, fulfilment, and so on) voraciously, even obscenely devouring cakes as a substitute. And the audio links, between scenes, which steal saucy excerpts from Jamie and Nigella’s television programmes. But what is there, beyond that? We descend into a spiral, a daisy-chain, of almost meaningless phrases: “cake is the new porn”; “love is the new Google”; “confusion is the new love”. Need I go on?
The idea is that ‘nothing is said, but everything is meant’. Sure, we get that. And we can read and intuit the torments, dilemmas and emotions that rack and ruin their already petty, practiced, unrelentingly safe and mundane lives. To that extent, the work has strengths. And quite profound ones. But the dizzying groundhog repetition of phrases that don’t even pass muster as euphemisms is aggravating. Why not, instead, have the courage of one’s convictions? Why not be a true believer in the ‘nothing is said, everything is meant’ precept and do away with dialogue altogether? I know, I know. It’s a lot to ask of a writer, to do abandon words. Than again, perhaps that’s the acid test. Such a move would’ve been compelling, challenging and effective, methinks.
Designer Justin Nardella intrigues with his set that sucks up the entirety of the small space that is the Griffin stage, reinvented as a sunken lounge; beige, like the lives of the protagonists. I don’t know why it’s sunken; perhaps to reflect their flagging spirits. It’s almost as if it’s going to swallow them; like drowning in quicksand. It’s tres What’s It All About, Alfie?, or Austin Powers, to my mind.
Shannon Murphy’s done a sterling job of directing her cast, who bring plenty of energy and intensity to their respective roles (the problem’s the play itself, not the production): Georgina Symes (Bella); Glen Hazeldine (Ant); Olivia Pigeot (Annie); Josef Ber (Bill).
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