As addictions go, porn used to be considered bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, perhaps even just a false cover for lasciviousness. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as heroin or alcohol, says Ani, the protagonist played by Ambika Mod in Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s daring new Porn Play. But the problem isn’t just the amount of porn Ani watches but the nature of it: extremely violent and misogynistic. “It’s fake!” she bites back when her boyfriend (Will Close) expresses concern. Over the next 100 minutes, the line between fantasy and reality wears thin.
What is most refreshing about Chetin-Leuner’s play is that there are no easy answers. The porn addict at its heart is not some middle-aged man living with his mum, but a young female academic on the rise. She’s smart and funny. She’s a feminist: Ani is clued up on sexually transmitted diseases; she has open dialogue with her boyfriend about their sex life; she hates the masturbatory term “beat one out”. It’s this that allows her to run circles around her boyfriend when he expresses genuine concern, which she takes as a policing of her desires and a side effect of his fragile male ego. Ani refuses to face the real-life consequences of her online life – or what her predilection says about her views on herself and other women.
All the action and all the w***ing takes place in Yimei Zhao’s futuristic-looking set that has transformed the Royal Court’s upstairs theatre into a fleshy, tiered collection of descending curves that functions like a magician’s top hat, out of which the actors magic prop after prop: a laptop, a duvet, even a table. It’s within this cocoon that Ani gives in to her desires under the covers, sex sounds emanating from the glow of her laptop. Audiences are given a more specific idea of what she’s into by way of a short summary of one such video from her boyfriend. It’s troubling and forces you to imagine it in awful detail.
The bass and synths of Helen Skiera’s electronic score grow more menacing as Ani’s addiction spirals from something of a joke (“As long as it’s not animals or kids, you’re good!” one friend assures her) into a serious problem, as the anniversary of her mother’s death nears. Before long, she can’t hold a conversation or stay present in a real-life sexual moment – the siren call (or moan?) of Pornhub proves too tempting to resist. Ani’s situation becomes so untenable that it takes a physical toll, resulting in a wince-inducing gynaecological trip to the GP. (Not the first time, we learn.)
A teacher addicted to violent pornography isn’t what you might expect from Mod, whose last role was the bookish romantic lead in Netflix’s adaptation of David Nicholls’s One Day – but to Ani she brings a naturalism and genuine fearlessness, not least because of the incessant staged masturbation required. Close, Lizzy Connolly, and Asif Khan do well to handle the handful of supporting roles between them.
Ani’s job as a professor of John Milton’s Paradise Lost makes for a neat framing device that allows her to lecture on the themes of the 17th-century epic – Eve, desire, original sin, etc, etc – but the play is at its best outside of these moments, which can feel a little heavy-handed. Anchored by Mod, Porn Play is by turns funny and disturbing – a welcome and bold addition to the growing discourse surrounding sex and the internet.
At the Royal Court Theatre until 12 December; information here
