‘The Performers’ is predictable porn-biz comedy

FARCICAL FIVESOME: (top, left to right) Henry Winkler, Jenni Barber, Ari Graynor; (center) Alicia Silverstone; (bottom, left to right) Daniel Breaker & Cheyenne Jackson in ‘The Performers’. Photo: Carol Rosegg

By Scott Harrah

This spoof of the porn world, set in Las Vegas during the Adult Film Awards, never tries to be anything but a lighthearted gigglefest filled with cartoonish characters and endless sexual puns that go for cheap laughs—and get them. Granted, The Performers is nothing like the 1997 film Boogie Nights, a first-rate drama about the dark side of the adult-film industry, but this is a comedy.  With an all-star cast featuring Cheyenne Jackson, Alicia Silverstone and Henry Winkler, the show certainly entertains, but playwright David Read West’s narrative is ultimately as flimsy and paper-thin as those in the X-rated movies it satirizes.

Mr. Jackson, clad in a loincloth, flip-flops and little else, plays Mandrew, a porn star gearing up for the blue-movie biz’s version of the Oscars.  His high school friend Lee (Daniel Breaker) is visiting him in Vegas and writing a profile of the infamous horndog for the New York Post.

The storyline is more suited for a wacky TV sitcom than Broadway. Lee is in Vegas with his fiancée Sara (Alicia Silverstone), a schoolteacher who is more interested in attending a Barry Manilow concert than the porn awards.  Mandrew is desperate to rekindle his high-school friendship with Lee, while coping with the problems he’s having with his wife and fellow adult star Peeps (Ari Graynor).

Peeps is overwrought because her pneumatic porn pal Sundown LeMay (Jenni Barber) had breast-augmentation surgery without consulting her.  Meanwhile, aging dirty-movie icon Chuck Wood (Henry Winkler) is gearing up to accept an award and make his comeback in the industry.

Mr. Winkler gives the show’s best performance, primarily because his character is the most believable and multifaceted.  Mr. Jackson and Ms. Graynor do their best to bring their one-dimensional characters to life onstage:  Both play vapid but lovable people with aplomb.  Ms. Silverstone is her usual goody-two-shoes princess self, and brings all she can to a role that is mired in clichés, and most of her scenes are predictable and forgettable, as are those of Ms. Barber.

Much of the lowbrow humor comes from the farcical situations the stereotypical characters get themselves into, and the suggestive lines and prurient punch lines are hilarious at times, but watching The Performers is much like eating an entire bag of potato chips or a whole cone of cotton candy at a theme park:  Fun, indulgent and hedonistic, but lacking any true substance or satisfaction.

So much material can be mined from the real-life porn world for either comedy or tragedy, but The Performers is little more than a frolicsome diversion that sheds no new light on its subject.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published November 17, 2012