The Accidental Pervert  – Off Broadway Theater Review  

THE PERVERT IN ALL OF US 

Theater Review 

by Andrew Turner 

published February 14, 2010 

The Accidental Pervert 

now playing Off Broadway at The Players Theatre Loft

through March 6

The Accidental Pervert, now playing Off Broadway at the Players Theatre, is being billed as a "shocking tour-de-force of honesty." The one-man show takes us on a tour of writer/performer Andrew Goffman’s life: from finding his father's porn collection when he was 11, to his marriage at 26, to the present day, where he has just become a new father.  

But is it really shocking? Not especially. Mr. Goffman is just one of the many millions of young boys across the world who stumbled onto pornographic materials before they are really ready. As a result, for a long time he is unable to see women as anything other than sexual objects. Again, not so shocking. Women are portrayed that way every day in a thousand different ways, most of them outside the realm of pornography. 

I also wonder how honest the performance really is. While I believe many of the events portrayed are more or less true to life, other events have clearly been altered for dramatic purposes. What I especially distrust is the fairytale ending, whereupon seeing his sleeping daughter and wife, Mr. Goffman decides to give up porn forever. You can’t help but wonder if his wife was looking over his shoulder when he wrote that part. 

Mr. Goffman’s performance, although energetic, is problematic in a couple of different ways. The first is his insistence on narrating his entire life story as if he’s a naïve eleven-year-old boy. Why he chooses to do this, since he’s obviously narrating from the present day, is just plain annoying. Another problem is his depiction of different ethnicities. In his impersonations of his African-American housekeeper and Hispanic wife, he resorts to every cliché in the book.

If Andrew Goffman is a pervert just for looking at porn, he’s in very good company. Millions of guys out there have had similar, if not almost exactly the same, experiences with pornography.  I suspect the only person in for a shock after this performance is Mr. Goffman’s wife, when she accidentally stumbles onto his browsing history on the internet.

andrewturner @ stageandcinema.com