What does pornography mean to you?

It is something that attracts and repulses you at the same time, hitting on your basic instincts and desires.

What is pornographic for you in Brief Interviews and in the writing of David Foster Wallace?

I name DFW writing “literary porn” and for this reason explore live sex on stage as a prologue for what is about to come through the language of actors. Wallace exposes the darkest corners of human psychie and delivers pleasure as we put together the complex puzzle of his thoughts and meanings. He seduces, manipulates and provokes in a similar consentual way, as a reader you can stop and put down the book any minute. As an audience, there is also clearly marked exist signs if this becomes too much.

How do you get pornography into the theatre?

I think one has to consider artistic needs of individual work, there is no need in pornography in the theater, there is a process of creation which can use all and any elements of entertainment to open up a horizon and to learn something about oneself.

Can you describe a pornographic emotion?

Instant arrousal and excitement and slight feeling of breaking the norm.

As a spectator do you have any memories of pornographic emotions?

Sure, I find a conventional theater which often ends with catharsis- very pornographic, an audience gets a release of feelings for the price of the ticket. As a spectator you let go of critical thinking and go into a fantasy land in your head, Aristotelian theater is very pornographic! I prefer Brecht with his open policy of enjoyment and instruction but always learning and change. Not to lose your cool head, not to lose critical thinking, to always be alert and active as an audience— that’s the kind of theater I am interested in.

— Sylvia Botella, april 2023