Review: Ten Reasons Why I’d Be a Bad Porn Star

From the playwright who brought you the hit Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman, May Lee-Yang has done it again with her witty and cutting edge work in her latest project Ten Reasons I Would Be A Bad Porn Star. In 2010, May’s Confessions became a surprise hit at the Fringe Festival, Minnesota’s annual performing arts festival. Confessions was a hit that became one of the top ten-selling shows by venue, solidifying May’s place in the performance art world. Ten Reasons, which has been reviewed as “one of the best plays at the Fringe,” features May, who uses storytelling, on-site sex toy demonstrations, and some cultural competency training to explore marriage, porn, romance novel fantasies, and how to talk about sex in the Hmong culture.

May-Lee Yang and Co-Star Saymoukda Vongsay

In Ten Reasons, May Lee-Yang plays herself, a Hmong woman who is defining “the relationship she has with sex, race politics, and what the heck artists [such as herself] have to do to survive.” Since she has treaded down many career paths, including that of being a sexual health educator—or “the Sex Lady,” as she is known to the at-risk youth she educates—as well as a peddler of sex toys (though not at the same time), it left May to question her own current career path as a performance artist. The questioning leads to a comical piece in the play where May puts out her own comparison chart of salaries, expected duties, pros, and cons of three professions: “Artists vs. Whores vs. Porn Stars,” with porn stars being the clear winner as far as time worked versus money earned. Thus, May embarks upon her new career move in front of her audience…until she remembers exactly why she would never, ever be a good porn star.

One of the best parts of the show is when May explains that in the Hmong culture, sexual talk is not only a taboo subject, but one that is linguistically shrouded in idioms as well. May, having observed many Asian porn stars to have names revolving around their race (i.e. Asia Carrera, Jessica Bangkok), hilariously denounces the tradition with her porn star name, “Ms. Meemers,” stemming from the Hmong term for breasts (mis mis); a term predominantly used with children. When May brings us through other sexually related Hmong terms such as “soft place,” as an English translation for the Hmong word for both “penis” and “vagina,” it’s laughable. Other idioms, such as “picking cucumbers together,” a translation for having sexual intercourse with someone, made an end-of-the-show comeback when an attendee was awarded a prize for having a “hidden cucumber” under their seat! May often interacts with her audience, and this is where she truly shines, coming across as warm and approachable, but also very confident and competent in her work.

Another important show-stopper was the use of only one other actress: the fabulous Saymoukda Vongsay in her role of May’s porn star “mentor.” She is literally on stage for ten minutes total, but when she is, you can’t keep your eyes off of her. She is provocative, but hilarious in her natural way of adapting to the porn star lifestyle.

A highlight of the show that truly “bears” mentioning was a kid-themed instructional video demonstrating the rather adult topic of how to perform sexual acts. In “BJ the Polar Bear’s Guide to Being a Ho…and Not the Garden Type,” a man in a polar bear suit instructs with graphic action the main moves an aspiring porn star is to learn—from kissing and oral sex all the way to intercourse, BJ the Polar Bear knows it all. May, being merely an exploratory newbie in the professional world of porn, learns about sex through the instruction of this video, satirizing sexual acts as taught in the mainstream world...by a man…in a bear costume. Hi-larious. In addition to just being amusing though, the video did add to Ten Reasons in a delightfully creative way, displaying May’s true range anf talent for incorporating mixed media into her art form.

Although the ending seemed to be a bit rushed, I did learn that it could have been due to the fact that May had to cut her 80-minute long performance to fit into the Fringe Festival’s 60-minute time limit. The only criticism I have for May is brushing up on the technical aspects of the show—some of the power point displays didn’t exactly match up to her lines, but luckily, she’s such a brilliantly experienced performer that she rolls with the punches like a true pro. She is natural and engaging and actually uses her art to say worthwhile things. Plus, she makes excellent use of shock value. In fact, May is so professional that although she loves praise, she welcomes and encourages criticism or complaints against her work as well—after all she’d love to add “I was censored” on her bio someday.

Fresh off a run at the Third National Asian American Theater Festival in Los Angeles, Ten Reasons employs a simply great cast using simple props to surround the complexity that is sex education, the politics of the porn industry, race issues, and how May’s Hmong cultural upbringing all collide into amusing and very clever work that works for audiences of all backgrounds. Do not, I repeat DO NOT miss another one from this promising performer. And please, skip the porn stars and whores: this woman packs more than enough entertainment you need for an hour.

By Elizabeth Thao