SMUT
When Peditto’s writing is in good form and is supported by a strong and complementary production (as was the case in Igloo’s 1986 staging of A Fire Was Burning . . .), Peditto’s style can produce some moving and thought-provoking effects. When it falls short of the mark, as in Smut, the result, though still interesting, is sloppy and almost incomprehensible.
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The story of a young man’s career as a clerk in a New York pornography store, Smut seeks to evoke an atmosphere of moral decay and emotional confusion. Pauley Vegas, the play’s hero, is caught in a spiritual grind; the sleaziness of the people and place surrounding him have gotten under his skin to the point that he can’t cope with the situation rationally. Pauley’s plight is suggested by the tough, edgy, street-poetry style in which he speaks; but the style isn’t enough. The images in Pauley’s dialogue don’t add up to anything more troubling than a portrait of a dingy and unpleasant environment–hardly the microcosm of soul-rotting degeneracy reflected in Pauley’s overwrought reactions.
Smut raises these questions but then drops them, preferring instead to drag us into Pauley’s particular mental morass. The play climaxes with a bizarre dream sequence in which Pauley is made the star-victim of a sadomasochistic movie directed by and starring his friends and family, then concludes with a late-night encounter between Pauley and a bandaged punk who may be a madman, the angel of death, or just a disgruntled customer.
