THEATRE REVIEW: Punching The Sky

THEATRE REVIEW:

PUNCHING THE SKY

at Cast, Doncaster

Lizi Patch, who wrote, produced and appeared in Punching The Sky, speaks from experience. Her 11-year-old son stumbled across brutal hardcore pornography which she says left him traumatised, and left her confused at how to respond.

She questioned herself and society, and then caused a media storm when she blogged about what had happened. She was supported and derided and a private family issue became public ‘entertainment’.

Punching The Sky is all about this. 

The first half of the play stands in stark contrast to the second half. It could be split up into pre-porn and post-porn. The first half is all about the traumas of suddenly having a baby and working out how to bring it up and is plain funny at times, quite poignant, and accessible to most parents. 

But then a big black cloud descends. Her son is sent a link by a friend who says he should watch a “funny” video. He wants to fit in with his mates and so views it but the violent porn he sees upsets him. He says to his mum that he can never unsee what he has witnessed.

But, to my mind, this is more a play about Lizi Patch than her son. She doesn’t know what to do, almost feels a failure as a parent, and can’t find any support on the internet.

So she decides to “start a conversation” and blogs about it. And then the trouble starts.

However, we don’t really get an idea of how bad things got because the play pretty much stops at this point and apart from a few graphics showing comments by supporters and critics alike we learn no more of the extent of the media blitz which included TV appearances and, of course, good old social media whose users rarely hold back with their thoughts.

The programme for the play talks about “overwhelming national and international reaction” but perhaps if you were unaware of Lizi’s story the extent of this would not be obvious from the production. Sadly, I thought this was a flaw and more time should have been spent emphasising why the media storm was so traumatic.

An audience shouldn’t have to know the back history of the writer to understand fully the play.

It would have been interesting to witness (on stage) the effect of the media storm on Lizi and her son.

The conversation that Lizi said she wanted to start is left a bit in the air because the play doesn’t really give many facts. What does she mean by violent pornography? What exactly did her son see? One person’s violence might not be another’s, and this could lead some to question whether the mum has simply, dare I say it, over-reacted.

The play was a tad self-indulgent in this respect because it doesn’t particularly open the issue up beyond what Lizi thinks. It ends before there is a conclusion although, with this divisive issue, maybe there isn’t a clear-cut one anyway.

I felt great sympathy with Lizi and would have liked to follow her through her story for longer. It might have helped the audience come to a clearer view.

On a positive note, it was a play that was effective dramatically, with various characters ably played by Milton Lopes and Emily Dowson challenging Lizi throughout. It is commendable that Lizi does write a play in which she is regularly asked if she is right. Punching The Sky is certainly honest.

The first part of the play, about coping with a child, works much better to me than the second half which, unfortunately, is the more important section. The audience does get a genuine sense of the upset the incident caused to both son and mother but little more.

The pressure on her son to conform with his friends is explored well, as is the point that boys are often socially pushed into accepting pornography and violence against women. This was the strength of the play. It would have been interesting to see how the reaction to Lizi’s blog divided on gender grounds. 

There is great use of animation which really kept the play inventive and challenging.

It was a good play, don’t get me wrong, and important in the sense that there is a real issue at the heart of it about society’s view of pornography, but it doesn’t really consider the matter as well as it could, which is a pity.

ANTONY CLAY