Hardcore Publicity for Hardcore Pussy

Hardcore Pussy
You may recognize this show from the cover of this week’s Mirror. Co-written by Amy Blackmore and Tristan Brand, this multimedia comedy tells the story of a girl and her fabulous house cat. It’s a funny and touching story, and the the cat, played by a real human, is awesome. Amy Blackmore plays the leading lady, a grumpy insomniac whose new love interest is taking her away from her beloved puss.

But I was a little suspicious when I saw that Amy Blackmore had not only co-written this show, but was directing choreographing and starring in it. There is a general rule of thumb in the world of theatre that cautions against writing and directing the same piece. It’s the easiest thing to think that you know your script better than anyone else. To believe that no director will ever understand it. This is all normal and natural. But it’s wrong. The stories we write are not for us, they are for others. At a certain point you have to let them go.

I would have been way more open-minded to the sudden spontaneous striptease number Ms. Blackmore whips out towards the end of the show, had she not written the scene in herself, and for herself. Don’t get me wrong, she does an amazing job at it. It was one of the hottest things I’ve seen all Fringe. But the scene is not integral to the story, and while seeing her strip down to a lacy black thong certainly makes the show more memorable, I wonder if that’s really what I’d want the show to be remembered for if I was directing it. It felt uncomfortably like she had just felt like showing us yet another of her many talents. And no audience wants to be played at. We want to be played for.