I see it everyday. The rise of reinvented recent history – retro frocks and hair shining with brill cream – bright red lipstick and curled hair, petticoated skirts. After the power suits of the 80s, the nihlism of the 90s and the electronica of the 00s, it seems now we are in an age of instant and direct digital connection, there is a desire for something we may feel we’ve lost.

Like that of Society for Creative Anachronism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Creative_Anachronism who spent lunch times and holidays swaggering around in gowns, cloaks, chain metal, re-imagining and re-enacting history as they would like it to be – as romantic and rustic – “a group devoted to the Middle Ages “as they ought to have been”, choosing to “selectively recreate the culture, choosing elements of the culture that interest and attract us” – I feel a rising fascination with the 50s… a rise in Rockabilly fashion and music… a love of vintage, hand made or retro items. There is a rising love of nostalgia: perhaps because of the digital age that we can google things from out childhoods: Battle of the Planets, the original Blinky Bill TV show with the knitted puppets, songs sung by Bobby Darren or Marilyn Monroe… we can live in a time when things seemed to make sense and have clarity, or structure. A time when we could imagine how life could play out – and that things would run according to plan. Interestingly a recent article in the UK Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/28/housewives-fifties-good-old-days seems to quash the rise of this romantic nostalgia.

And for me, there is an attraction – perhaps because of the steady diet of Doris Day films I ingested in my childhood, or perhaps because the romantic male leads in so many films of that era seemed so clear on what they wanted or who they are, or what is right and good? Moreso, as a curvy woman the silhouette of feminine beauty of that era is more reassuring to me than the pilates toned, gym-fit examples of desire I see around me. And what came first my love of cake or my curvy silhouette? I am a long time cake enthusiast (a genetic trait inherited from my father), often in my down time I’m whipping and mixing up a storm.

Couple this cakelove with my VanessaBates-love. Vanessa Bates is a writer I have had the pleasure to get to know since bumping into her at an opening night in 2009 and introduced to her by my friend James Waites… I had been rambunctiously chatting to her about all things playwriting without realising that the Vanessa I was talking to was “Vanessa Bates.” And since then we have worked together on several shows: Brand Spanking New, Stories from the 428, I Contain Multitudes, Women Power Culture, Sonic Tales and soon we’ll start work on A View From Moving Windows (Riverside) and Platonic (NIDA). There is something in the content that ressonates with me and I wont attempt to dissect that here or now: because it feels like a private, quiet knowledge that sits inside me (feels like love) and doesn’t need explaining.

OK. Enough of a preamble.

Amongst the adaptations of American classics and the re-invented irreverently referenced European canon Vanessa Bates’ Porn.Cake has tapped into something so perfectly troublingly true – that draws our attention to something so domestic yet epic in its proliferation.

Disconnection. Insatiable consumption. Status symbols. Sex. Boredom. Dissatisfaction. Mundanity. Anger. Sadness.

In a cream coloured rumpus room – like that of a small decent into a suburban domestic hell – four adults sit. Nothings natural – all seems as it could or should be: but the conversation jerks and splutters in slabs of sharp interchanges. Two couples sit more like tumbled bric-a-brac than souvenir salt’n’pepper shakers. Though the women Annie and Bella are beautiful, sexy and primed – there is a sad wanting in them. The men Bill and Ant are soft and resigned, soggy and distracted. The scene replays like a vinyl record scratched: revealing a new facet with each hiccup. The repetition is fascinating – we are cued and re-cued into familiar pattersn but each time, a word, an inflection and interchange is spliced or given more explanation: the text layers until we see the full picture of the conversation.

Punctuating the conversation is the handling of slick slabs and creamy wedges of glamourous cake. A construction of poison to the pilates-trim natural therapist. A source of domestic pride from others – a necessary face-hole filler. A symbol of surrendering to yet another birthday.

Slurping and sucking at the cake – sometimes animalistic – sometimes a necessary medicine: desire, longing or filling up is displaced.

The addictions of the modern world. At one time, cake was a food reserved for parties and special occasions – a few times a year for weddings or christenings – or food to welcome afternoon guests. Now slabs of artless cake sit in plastic dome cases at the supermarket, like Snow White waiting for a kiss. At one time porn was a sneaky magazine flick, tattered pages and women with public hair. Now an unbelievable, international array of interchangeable pouts and positions which may be influencing the way in which men perceive sex. You need look no further than to Naomi Wolf http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/naomi-wolf-on-the-porn-myth-20100503-u3af.html or to http://makelovenotporn.com/

Despite the heavy matter – the social symptoms of personal existential dilemma, Shannon Murphy’s production brimming with the ever-present, bright, steadfast talents of Georgina Symes, Glenn Hazeldine, Olivia Pigeot and Josef Ber found the necessary bubble and cream to keep the text lightly whipped.

And of course as a thearical bakeress, how could I leave you without one of my favourite cakes. (designed for afternoons when you are fantasizing that you are related to Nigella Lawson just for the buttery goodness she’ll spoon into your aching void.)

Augusta’s Curve-creating Coconut Syrup Cake

Ingredients:
THE SYRUP
1/2 cups of water
1 1/2 cups of sugar
juice and peel of 1/2 lemon
3 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick

THE CAKEY PART
4 eggs, separated – you want the white parts… ( keep the yolks for breakfast or for pastry making)
a pinch of salt
2/3 cup softened butter
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of milk – not skim
1 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 1/2 cups of shredded coconut

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 170°C.
Combine all syrup ingredients in a saucepan and boil for 7-8 minutes. Remove from heat ignore until cool.
Beat the egg whites with salt to stiff peaks.
In another bowl, beat together the egg yolks, margarine, and sugar until creamy. Beat in milk. Whisk together the flour and baking powder and beat into the mixture. Stir in the coconut. Fold in the beaten egg whites – try not to crush it’s intergrity with your fervour.
Lightly grease a 15 X 10 inch baking pan
Transfer the cake batter to the pan and spread evenly.
Bake at 170°C for 40-45 minutes until golden and the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Remove from the oven and while it’s hot pour the cooled syrup evenly over the cake.
Pour carefully, starting around the edges and moving into the middle.
Allow 2-3 hours for the syrup to be absorbed and the cake to cool completely before serving.
I like to serve with dollops of hand whipped cream tainted with vanilla essence accompanied by a strong black coffee in a beautiful cup. Or a scotch.