REVIEW: Modern romance explored with humor in 'Porn for Puritans'

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - July 11, 2004

By Perry Stewart

How do writer/performers Leigh Tomlinson and Tim Wardell address the "contradictions, inconsistencies and foibles of contemporary romance" in their naughty romp Porn for Puritans?

Let us count the voices: Elizabethan English, pig Latin, ersatz blues music, Harlequin romance prose. Now, the settings: a fantasy dating camp, a dating game show, a fairy tale, a date auction and a visit from Captain Pete, the Foreplay Pirate.

Porn is not a full-blown revue, but it includes a couple of songs. In one, Tomlinson counsels males: "If you want to undress us, impress us." And in Monogamy Blues, the satirical lyrics are surpassed in hilarity by the relentlessly (and intentionally, one prays) bad music -- including a singularly unhip harmonica solo by Tomlinson.

Both performers slip in and out of various characters with skill. Evelyn Mullins' direction keeps the pace zippy in the small space at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary. (There's no intermission.) And Lincoln Apeland's music ranges from vapid keyboard sounds to a first-rate saxophone solo.

In its best moments, the show contrasts the romantic goals and methodology of men and women. It gets no better than a matching pair of bits in which Tomlinson enacts the ultimate male fantasy and Wardell depicts the man every woman supposedly desires.

Despite its title, Porn is not for the puritanical. It earns an R rating for language, subject matter and some explicit sexual ... uh, choreography.