Pulp Reviews: Project XXX
Sam Martin, Abi Coffey, Spencer Clark, and Danielle Cabubas in the opening scene of Project XXX
Ellie Stephenson reviews SUDS’ Project XXX
I’ve come to the Holme Building’s Cellar Theatre to watch SUDS’ new production, Project XXX. The play, a 105 minute reflection on the role of pornography in young people’s lives, was originally written by Kim Wiltshire and Paul Hines after surveying British teenagers about their porn viewing habits. It has been adapted by Director Margaret Thanos; the programme notes that while the original version of the play framed women ruining men’s lives as a form of revenge, this adaptation of Project XXX has a different vision of feminist empowerment. “Surely feminism is about women gaining that status and doing something different or better than their male counterparts might”, Thanos writes.
Project XXX’s plot follows Amy (Danielle Cabubas) a 15-year-old schoolgirl whose awful boyfriend Josh (Sam Martin) has leaked a video of her giving him oral sex. She’s left Sydney for the summer to work in her uncle’s DVD shop. There she meets 25-year-old Callum (Spencer Clark), a film nerd, porn addict and certified loser who also happens to be her childhood crush. She and Callum, who harbours an unhealthy preoccupation with the work of pornstar Jenna Jamze (Abi Coffey), start an awkward romance which forms the vehicle for the play’s social commentary. Amy attempts to regain her sexual agency by filming the loss of her virginity on her upcoming 16th birthday - a plan which provides a great deal of comedy when combined with Callum’s mediocre directorial gaze.
Daniella Cabubas makes a compelling Amy, balancing the character’s naïveté and anger effectively and providing a complex representation of the struggle with sexualisation often encountered by teen girls. Sam Martin’s Josh is an infuriatingly realistic teenage boy - you probably attended high school with a Josh like this, his whiny intonation matched only by his misogyny. Spencer Clark’s Callum is a more complex character: for all Callum’s eccentric enthusiasm for film and his righteous anger at Josh, he remains an adult man dating a teenager whose tissue-strewn bedroom is witness to a DVD porn collection. Clark’s characterisation of Callum reflects the nuances of a man who is pitiable, yet hardly sympathetic, but also whose appeal to Amy isn’t totally inexplicable.
Abi Coffey’s character provides perhaps the most direct critique of the porn industry in the play. She provides Jenna Jamze with an intentionally grating, breathy affectation, her words often eliding into gasps and moans. Her character doesn’t get all that much development; she is an almost-constantly sexualised product of Callum’s imagination. Coffey is at the centre of probably the most confronting scene of the play, where she breaks character to talk frankly about the toll the industry has taken on her, before involuntarily returning to her pornstar act.
The set and costume design, by Margaret Thanos and Kimmi Tonkin respectively, is cohesive and creates a strong sense of atmosphere. The wall of DVDs and carpet tiles of the DVD shop is perfectly run down, slightly sleazy. Callum’s bedroom is just as realistic: a space of assorted UberEats bags and messy bed sheets. Equally, both Amy’s wardrobe and Callum’s button-up shirts and graphic tees match their characters neatly. The play is given a multimedia aspect thanks to videographer Charlie Hollands, which is fitting given its subject matter. The lighting, designed by Alice Stafford, is well done: the use of silhouette is impactful in depicting Callum’s fantasies of Jenna.
All up, Project XXX is a complex, very funny, at times confronting piece of theatre. It’s been adapted and directed cleverly by Margaret Thanos and Assistant Director Isla Mowbray and produced effectively by Producer Ezara Norton and Assistant Producer Pratha Nagpal. The team has evidently thought carefully about the messages of the production and how they are conveyed.