PORN.CAKE-

Olivia Pigeot and Josef Ber in PORN.CAKE. Pic by Giselle Haber

Let them eat cake. Attributed to Marie Antoinette, what does it really mean? Let the starving stew in sugar? Or feed the hungry the finer things?

There’s certainly plenty of food for thought in Vanessa Bates play PORN.CAKE the confronting confection currently being served at the Stables Theatre.

Can you have your cake and eat it too? Is the return of the home made cake a quest for comfort in a world carved up and compartmentalised? Has cake been “pornified” by such culinary linguists as Nigela Lawson and Jamie Oliver? Is yesterday’s cup-cake a stale sponge? What is the recipe to keep romance in a relationship?

So many ingredients make Bates’ art big and the pop culture calorie counter gets bigger under Shannon Murphy’s mix-master melange.

The icing on this cake is the committed cast of four – does this make it a four play? – Josef Ber, Glenn Hazeldine, Olivia Pigeot, and Georgina Symes. This cake consuming ménage a quatre gorge, gouge, and grapple their way through a garrulous gateaux engagement, a grand bouffe of gluttony and regret, and the greener pastures of nostalgia scented with green apple shampoo.

Justin Nardella’s sunken lounge entertainment pit design acts as a comfy cushioned amphitheatre where these gateaux gladiators play their games – on themselves and the audience.

Gluttons for punishment especially for the gluten intolerant – food fads, fetishes and preferences are focused upon – the characters kvetch and retch, and use their evolved thumbs for texting. Thumbing- up has led to dumbing-down in the intimate conversation stakes. Even the arrival of a birthday cake literally loses its celebratory sparkle before it reaches centre stage.

As tasty as Nigella and with an Oliver twist, PORN.CAKE is a drama of domestic science baked at extreme temperature so as to blacken the humour. Delicious!

Vanessa Bates’s PORN.CAKE opened on Friday 22nd June at the SBW Stables Theatre, 10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross and runs until Saturday 14th July, 2012,

© Richard Cotter
25th June, 2012
Tags: Sydney Theatre Reviews- PORN.CAKE, Stables Theatre, Vanessa Bates, Shannon Murphy, Josef Ber, Glenn Hazeldine, Olivia Pigeot, Georgina Symes, Justine Nardella, Gisella Haber, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter.