A moving insight into addiction and pornography
Royal Court Theatre
⭑⭑⭑
Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s new play is about addiction. Unexpectedly the addiction in question is to violent pornography and the addict is a woman.
In case you’re thinking this is a little recherché for the subject of a play, we’re told almost straightaway that more women than men search for violent porn. Even so, she seems to be something of an outlier in the world of porn addicts, the clue being she’s the only woman at a porn addicts anonymous group.
It may be about a niche subject, but the play presents a moving portrait of addiction and poses an intriguing question as to why a woman would become addicted to violent pornography.
If you’re easily shocked, this is one to avoid. Ambika Mod’s character Ani spends a significant chunk of the evening playing with herself. She also gives us enough vivid descriptions of what she watches to leave us in no doubt that we are talking about nasty stuff, even if she insists, in that addict’s self deceptive way, that it’s fake.
You might also want to avoid it if John Milton isn’t your thing. She’s an academic specialising in the great poet and we learn a lot about paradise, for which read sexual pleasure, and paradise lost, for which read the pain of grief. It may make you want to pick up a volume of his verse and look at it with new eyes, or not.
Ambika Mod is exceptionally good in this part, communicating desperate need, and the shame, fear and helplessness that go with it, all the while presenting a public façade of normality as she pursues her career as a university lecturer and academic. This actor has such an ability to communicate complex feelings that she is surely heading for the top.
Josie Rourke directs with precision.
Yimei Zhai’s set compliments the action superbly. We the audience are given shoe covers to wear before entering the auditorium. This is because the entire area is covered in soft pale carpet. The circular stage area and its softness may suggest a woman’s gentitalia but also, because of the whorls that take it down through a number of levels, it may signify a downward spiral. In a stroke of genius, the set is designed so the cast can reach between the joins in the fabric to retrieve props, such as a phone, a tablet or larger items like a pillow, much as you might look for a lost coin down the side of your settee, . This is wondrous in itself, but it mainly reinforces the idea that Ani’s addiction is hidden.
Not that it stays hidden for long. She takes out her phone or laptop at every opportunity to masturbate while looking at porn. This could be when someone leaves the room for a moment, or even when they are asleep in the same bed. Those close to her- her boyfriend, her best friend, her father all realise she has a serious problem. Soon her life starts to fall apart. Her exasperated boyfriend leaves her, her job is in jeopardy.
Will Close portrays with sensitivity the boyfriend’s struggle between love and disgust. He also gives us other examples of masculinity in the course of the play: a male porn addict’s macho mansplaining, a young student’s rampant hormones.
The arc of Ani’s addiction is depicted well. She maintains the violence is not really that shocking because it’s ‘fake’, but after trying it for herself she acknowledges that her enjoyment is in watching the women get hurt. She is, after Milton, a ‘brutal woman’. Eventually she reaches a point where she knows she needs to stop. Her addiction seems sad for much of the play. However, when she reaches the end of the road, sitting at one corner of the stage stroking herself robotically while the one person who cares enough to help her is in the opposite corner, it is heartbreaking.
Someone commented on The Fifth Step, another play about addiction, that while the subject is no laughing matter, it can be very funny. Sophia Chetin-Leuner seems to take this view. A couple of scenes spring to mind. Because of her continual rubbing, she has made herself sore and succumbed to an infection. She visits a gynecologist, played by Lizzy Connolly who cloaks her in that brisk matter-of-fact indifference, not even looking at Ani, that many patients will be familiar with.
During an event at which she is to receive her award for her book on Milton, Ani is approached by an old man who thinks she’s a waiter simply because she’s a young woman. Women are not expected to win top academic awards any more than they’re expected to be as sexually active as men. The old man is played by Asif Khan, who also gives an exquisitely gentle performance as Ani’s father.
In her mind, people begin to say sexual things to her. A woman seems to say to her: ‘I don’t know how you do it, spend all your time giving head’ which is then corrected as ‘in the head of that vile old man Milton.’ Milton crops up frequently when Ani addresses the audience. She talks about his poems at length, that he identified the way good and evil live in parallel, and pleasure masks pain. This does perhaps explain how her addiction arises from grief. And how Eve, the first woman, is a rebel against the patriarchy but also submissive to it. But it does start to feel like a lecture.
There are other moments when it seems the author has not entirely relevant axes to grind. For example, there’s a scene between Ani and one of her students, another fine creation from Lucy Connolly. To an extent it illustrates the gap between millennials and Gen Z. The ‘woke’ student has been triggered by Ani talking about a rape scene in one of Milton’s poems. Ani representing an older generation (that of the author) is tolerant of different times and wants to study a great poet warts and all. The younger generation has no tolerance and wants to cancel Milton. ‘Why would you want to read him and analyse all these horrible men?’ She asks. It’s a bit of a cliché and doesn’t really add to the story.
Porn Play tries to cram too much in but it is a play well worth seeing for its moving, insightful portrait of the effect of easily available pornography on 21st century sex and relationships.
Porn Play can be seen at The Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at The Royal Court until 13 December 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre
Paul paid for his ticket. He saw the last preview before the Press Night.