Kristin Johnston in Lady Porn, Whizgiggling Productions, Edmonton Fringe 2023. Photo supplied

Lady Porn (Stage 2, Backstage Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Is there such a thing as feminist porn? That’s a tricky question put to us by Lady Porn.

And here’s a couple of soft lobs that Trevor Schmidt’s new play for Whizgiggling Productions slams into the back court. Does porn count as feminist if there’s an all-female cast and crew? Is the born-again Christian in the cast off the hook if she’s just doing it for the cash and her husband is in favour of it? Do you score any feminist cred if you call a movie a film?

The characters are a trio of former porn stars. Jill (Kristin Johnston) is producing and directing what she insists will be “female-centric,” an “art film” with, OK, “some hard-core elements” to nail the funding.

Cheryl Jameson in Lady Porn, Whizgiggling Productions, Edmonton Fringe 2023. Photo supplied

Bonnie (Cheryl Jameson), whose stage name was Bunny Velvet, left the biz when she married a guy she met in a porn cast. They found the Lord, gave up “depravity and sin,” and now Kevin’s a pastor with a ministry. Bonnie is back in the biz, only temporarily of course, because their double-garage needs a new roof and plumbing is expensive. Kevin says that God says it’s OK.   

This slow-moving play opens, curiously, with long, explanatory, self-justifying monologues from Jill and Bonnie, the former revealing a certain evasiveness on all details (the backers want to remain anonymous) and the latter exuding pieties. They seem to be well-established positions.

Michelle Todd in Lady Porn, Whizgiggling Productions. Photo supplied

It’s no accident the most appealing character is veteran porn star Denyse (Michelle Todd), with 4,000 titles in her resumé. She’s the most honest for one thing, and also the most succinct. No big monologues for Denyse. She just says breezily “I’m up for anything!” from time to time.

The performances in Schmidt’s production are vivid from all three actors. And the script is not without its witty lines as you might expect. But once the characters have declared their positions, at length in the case of Jill and Bonnie, there’s not much room for dramatic development. They can only repeat them, with variations.

Lady Porn has a built-in hypocrisy detector, whether the pieties are feminist or Christian. Only Denyse, the business woman who declares freely that porn is a business, comes off clean.