Andy Warhol's Pork
Andy Warhol's Pork is a 1971 play by Andy Warhol. It was directed by Anthony Ingrassia, produced by Ira Gale, and stage-managed by Leee Black Childers. Warhol's private conversations with Brigid Polk served as the basis for the play Pork, which featured exaggerated depictions of Warhol and the Factory crowd.
Background
Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Andy Warhol and his superstars Brigid Polk and Viva. During his conversations with Polk, she would play her tapes of phone calls between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin.Warhol provided 200 hours of tape, which was edited down to 3 hours. The first act took two weeks, and the second act took two and a half weeks to complete. "Near the end of that time, I discovered that though the play was about Pork, it was B. Marlowe who controlled Pork and all the rest of them... And that was the genius of Andy Warhol. He listened and looked, and he painted what was familiar to all of us," said director Anthony Ingrassia.
Synopsis
B. Marlowe, a deadpanned voyeur who always has a Polaroid camera on hand, is the charismatic head of the group. Two antagonistic sidekicks are playing up to him: Amanda Pork, a plump overachiever involved in drugs and sex, and Vulva, a caustic, boisterous vamp in drag with a Southern accent. Pork is estranged from her husband and attended by the Pepsodent twins, two nude men with pastel powdered genitals. A sly topless dancer named Josie discusses her clients while "douching" with her back to the audience. Marlowe is chauffeured around in a wheelchair, snapping photos and listening to gossip. The set is a combination of Marlowe's studio, Amanda Pork's bedroom, and Max's Kansas City.Cast
The play featured Cleve Roller as "Amanda Pork," a character based on Brigid Polk, Tony Zanetta as Andy Warhol called "B. Marlowe," Wayne County as "Vulva," who was a depiction of Viva. The "Pepsodent Twins" represented Warhol's boyfriend Jed Johnson, and his twin brother, Jay Johnson. Geri Miller played "Josie," and Via Valentina and Cyrinda Foxe played two S&M girls. Other cast members included Jamie de Carlo Lotts, Julia Breck, Suzanne Smith, and Harvey Fierstein. Kathy Dorrite played "Amanda Pork" in the London production.Production history
The play opened on May 5, 1971, at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York City for a two-week run. It was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a six-week run in August 1971. The production was controversial due to the nudity and simulated sexual acts performed on stage. In London, Warhol superstar Geri Miller caused a scandal when she was arrested for exposing her breast during a photo session in front of Clarence House, the residence of the Queen Mother. Musician David Bowie was a fan of the play, and he later hired several of the Pork cast members to join his management firm MainMan.Critical reception
Reviewing Pork for The New York Times, journalist Grace Glueck wrote, "All in all, it's a cozy bunch; take out the fornication, masturbation, defecation and prevarication with which 'Pork' is larded and you might have a certain similarity to the juvenile gang in 'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.'"The British press panned the play except for Nicholas de Jongh of The Guardian who wrote, "both for the exuberant and accurate caricature of sexuality and its larger purposes it must be seen." Journalist Valerie Jenkins wrote for the Evening Standard that "Pork's redeeming essence is that it finds itself so ridiculous; from start to finish it demands not to be taken seriously; it's Warhol people debunking themselves." Keith Nurse of The Daily Telegraph likened the play to "the nearest thing to a theatrical emetic... It's a sort of avant-garde candid camera which takes a venereal and bizarre look at the backside of life. And the net effect is more purgative than funny; inescapably boring rather than titillating."
Musician David Bowie was a fan of the play, and he was influenced by the London production. He later hired several of the Pork cast members to join his management firm MainMan. In an interview with William S. Burroughs published in the February 28, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Bowie stated:
Remember Pork? I want to get that on TV. TV has eaten up everything else, and Warhol films are all that is left, which is fabulous. Pork could become the next I Love Lucy, the great American domestic comedy. It's about how people really live, not like Lucy, who never touched dishwater. It's about people living and hustling to survive. That's what Pork is all about. A smashing of the spectacle.