Play questions who the real Pervert is

After leaving Northern Light’s Pervert, now playing at the Varscona Theatre, the five women in my group were inexplicably silent. Normally we’re all trying to out-compete each other on the verbal barometer.

How did the explosive end fit into the play? It appeared with virtually no warning and left us wondering if we’d missed a few pieces of the puzzle.

In Pervert, Calgary playwright Stephen Massicotte gives you a tour of porn shops and of everyday people indulging their erotic tastes.

When it comes to sex, our culture is still shrouded in prudery and Massicotte excavates the shame and embarrassment, the apathy and cynicism that are offshoots of unravelling relationships.

Mike (Doug Mertz) is the play’s puritan, a greying clean-cut realtor whose two-year marriage to Lisa (Joceyln Ahlf) has lost its zing. She wants to spice up their bedroom antics. He gags trying to talk dirty. At her behest, he checks out a 24-hour porn shop run by Tim (Jason Chinn), a bookish young clerk who has peddled smut for close to two years.

One of the play’s funniest scenes is when a sweaty-palmed Mike strolls into the shop hiding behind dark glasses. While he looks as if he would like the floor to swallow him live, Tim casually rips off a comprehensive knowledge of hard-core and soft-core as well as the trendiest on-camera ejaculations.

At first, the rousing DVDs work for Mike and Lisa and Mike slowly reveals a secret fetish. But when Lisa one-ups their sexual adventure, he starts to feel dirty.

“How do you go from being happy one minute to being disgusted the next?” he asks at one point.

Meanwhile, Tim, who has a jaded take on life, has his own issues. His tall, curvaceous girlfriend Trish (Mary Hulbert), a cocktail server, is urging him to quit the porn job. Originally, he only took it for a couple of months, but it’s been over a year and she wants him out of the business. “You’re surrounded floor to ceiling in sperm,” she yells.

In a jaded, cynical way, Tim is overtly jealous of the men she serves, especially the ones that leave big tips. But Tim isn’t just underachieving in the job market. “The only person who doesn’t have sex with me is you,” Trish bristles.

Tim’s connection to the porn shop takes on a nasty feel after he becomes convinced Mike has stolen a DVD. He takes the theft personally, and to find proof, he obsessively plays the security cameras over and over again.

The fifth character floating in and out of the story is the older Kurt (James Hamilton), a wheezing, oxygen-toting porn glutton who will never have a relationship with a woman. Why should he when he can substitute 20,000 babes on video for the real thing? With bags under his bloodshot eyes, he is Tim a decade or two down the road and it’s scary.

Massicotte provides more than a few insightful observations, both in and out of the bedroom, and director Trevor Schmidt stays true to the playwright’s vision of dismantling stereotypes.

Mertz’s Mike is a sweet guy who gradually loses control of his world; Ahlf’s Lisa discovers a hidden sexuality and relishes her newfound sexiness while Hulbert’s Trish comes to a realization that some relationships aren’t meant to be. Even Hamilton’s Kurt has a sort of vampire-like charm.

Although the production neither endorses nor disapproves of pornography, it recognizes the large role it plays and its captivating pull. If anything, Pervert shows that refuting your sexual fantasies can be just as dangerous as pandering to them.