Intimacy

Intimacy, By Rich Moreland

Intimacy: A warmly spoken word that describes a play’s topic and the theater that is its home. For readers who may not know, David Bertolino’s the Deep Throat Sex Scandal is set to open at the Zephyr Theater in West Hollywood on January 24.

Playgoers, no more than ninety-nine at any one time, will hear every word and experience every nuance as the story unfolds on stage. Close-in seating invites the viewer to reach out and touch the performance, literally, and in this show touching may be tempting! With comedic delight, the script at first celebrates the making of the 1972 film that rocked America. By the second act, drama takes the stage in a sobering look at the film’s subsequence dust-up with the feds over censorship.

Theater attendees will embrace the play’s take on the movie’s production with a bit of humor. But it’s the political side of the legendary porn film that playwright David Bertolino and director Jerry Douglas want to convey. Everyone has the right to watch or read whatever they want and it’s none of the government’s business.

Censorship is the enemy of all visual art, be it Broadway, Hollywood, or that “other Hollywood” where the sexual is daily fare. Bertolino’s show is a reminder of how prudery via show trial was the preferred weapon of the government’s war on smut. The second half of the play highlights the Memphis Trial four years after the film’s debut that challenged America’s most cherished right.

The courtroom was a circus and inexplicably lowered the hammer on Harry Reems, the film’s “doctor” who convinces a frustrated Linda Lovelace that her clitoris is in her throat. Reems, who now lives quietly in Utah, was an easy target for the government’s prosecution, becoming the lost child of the court proceedings. Mob money backed the film’s production and several individuals, among them director Gerard Damiano and Reems, were convicted.

Harry Reems’ later successful appeal turned a civil liberties lawyer named Alan Dershowitz into a recognized name.

To poke fun at the government and its Comstockery, the Boston-born David Bertolino has a full-time cast of eight that includes former porn performers Veronica Hart and Hershel Savage. Theater goers will discover that porn actors really can act! The lead roles of Linda and Harry will be played by Natasha Charles Parker and Marc Ginsberg.

As an exciting perk, the play will fill cameo roles on a weekly basis using celebrities of all stripes. From the adult film world recognized names like Nina Hartley, Georgina Spelvin, Amber Lynn, Bill Margold, and Ron Jeremy will make appearances. Performers from the other side of the Hollywood sign are also on tap. Among the personalities Bertolino has corralled are Sally Kirkland, Bruce Vilanch, and Christopher Knight. Broadway, film, and TV are represented each night this daring and provocative show entertains at close range.

So get your warm and fuzzies ready for intimacy. Go see the Deep Throat Sex Scandal. You’ll have a good time and hug a civics lesson in the process.