We all have our slight addictions, many of them relatively benign like coffee. For others like the protagonists of Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography, the most recent production in Perth Theatre Company’s 2014 season, they are more extreme and not without their consequences – whether it be his addiction to hardcore pornography on the Internet or her predilection for maxing out credit cards in shops both real and online.
Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography is, as I havecome to expect from Perth Theatre Company, compelling and challenging theatre, presented with simplicity and honesty. Like much of their work the play does not always make for comfortable or easy viewing, make no mistake this is not light entertainment. Nor is it wholly gloomy and “depressing”, Declan Greene’s script is at times as beautifully witty and darkly comic as it is bleak and confronting. You’ll find yourself laughing in one breath and then cringing in the next.
Greene’s premise is a straightforward one. In many ways it’s a classic boy-meets-girl tale. That is if both boy and girl were in their 40s and met on an online dating site. Both are stuck firmly in midlife crisis mode, a downward spiral of Internet porn and online shopping. Both of them on the hunt for something to break them out of the routine of their lives, to give them a little spark of happiness. Turning to each other in desperation in an attempt to provide each with what the other is missing, to no avail. It is a damming indictment of our age of instant gratification, where a tantalising instant of intimacy is chosen above a lasting relationship.
Andrea Gibbs and Steve Rodgers, the two actors behind the nameless protagonists, are an impressive pairing and work well together, giving their characters desperate and fleeting relationship plausibility. Both give charming and captivating performances and inhabit their characters so well, somehow despite everything making their flawed characters both likeable and the audience sympathetic. It was a brilliant performance from both actors in what must have been a challenging and confronting role.
Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography was everything I hoped it would be and more. A fantastic introduction to the work of Declan Greene, a writer whose work I hope to see much more of. Eight Gigabyte of Hardcore Pornography is a compelling and engaging work, that doesn’t shy away from the sometimes uncomfortable realities of real life. A production replete with award-worthy performances and a story that is confronting, devastatingly honest and leaves you with plenty of questions to mull over on your journey home.
Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography plays through till July 12, for more information click HERE
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