Stephens, S. (2008) ‘Pornography’. London: Methuen.

Simon Stephens in rehearsal

• Scenes are structured around the 7 stages of man
• Simon Stephens originally have the play to Richard Eyre, then-Artistic Director of the National Theatre, who responded saying that he “couldn’t do it” because he didn’t recognise it as a play, due to its experimentation with form
• Each scene involved a transgression of some kind
• There is a common theme running throughout of being unable to interpret or intuit emotions correctly. In many scenes people are unable to distinguish between crying and laughing. There is a general lack of empathy.
• Identifies how obituaries valourise people – for instance, had Jason died in the bombing, the fact that he stubbed a cigarette out on his teacher’s face would be irrelevant, even though it was a terrible thing to do.
• The ‘characters’ of the play are only connected by the consumer items which they use, purchase or own
• The title is significant: Stephen takes it from a history of the objectification of people. Through the piece, the audience doesn’t care about the individual personality of the character-performer, but explots them. Similarly, terrorist bombers instrumentalise people by seeing them as functions of a state and a culture rather than as people.