Gonzo

In the words of Avenue Q's Trekkie Monster, "the internet is for porn," and, what's more, teens and tweens are well aware of it. Millennials have grown up in the information age and while the internet holds many positive wonders for young minds, it's also a portal to unfettered filth in volumes unmatched in bygone decades. Childlike innocence is a thing of the past, but just because young people are accessing porn doesn't mean they are any better equipped to make sense of this limitless torrent of digitised sex, spanning the full gamut of erotic invention from "vanilla" to the kinkiest kink on the bleeding edge of fetish.

Director Clare Watson's newly devised production exploring the intersection between adolescence and online hardcore, promises a probing investigation of this phenomenon and the ramifications for the mental and sexual development of teenagers. In reality, this show never manages to get to second base.

As far as source material is concerned, there's plenty of eye-opening information at hand. Using the actual testimony of anonymous Melburnian teens, four young actors from the St Martins Youth Arts Centre (Ari Long, Jack Palit, Sam Salem and Sol Rumble) become the mouthpieces for these candid revelations. Recitations of these firsthand accounts are used to punctuate a kind of hyper-realist chitchat between the four boys, as they shoot the breeze talking about the inane (but nonetheless charming) things teenage boys talk about. 

The juxtaposition of the adorably clueless and the shockingly sordid is clearly used to emphasise the developmental deficit between the porn these boys consume and the psychological capacity they have to process it.

This point is made with swift, sharp clarity and it's an important observation, of course, but not much of a revelation and while there are gentle nods to other facets of this conversation, such as the paradox of our ingrained social prudishness, our hyper-sexualised pop-culture, the truism that sex sells and the stagnant inadequacies of sex education, the method of the storytelling never lifts beyond this pivoting between cute and crude. After a while, terracing these two polarities begins to take on the character of a PSA. Severe shifts in lighting state, from warm, wholesome floods to sinister down-lit spots, seems to push a more conservative morality than this open-minded production probably intends.

While the production's four actors are sharing intimate experiences that are not their own, an endearing amount of individuality is allowed to percolate through their performances, especially from Jack Palit, whose geeky charisma spins some thoroughly beguiling humour. There's also some well-judged audience participation featuring karaoke and an ejaculation - not at the same time, mercifully.

Consequently, this is a very entertaining hour of theatre and an impressively handsome one to boot, thanks to the superb video design of Michael Carmody and the reliably accomplished sound design of Russell Goldsmith (the mind boggles as to the number of orgasms he had to listen to while working on this production). But is it especially didactic or illuminating in its message? Not really, and the unsatisfying thrust with the show's ironically limp cadence - an awkward, mumbled and boringly polite panel discussion with a former porn actress (who insists it's a political, feminist act) ­- means this show ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

Malthouse Theatre presents Gonzo to 1 Oct.