A new play from Perth based writer and performer Jeffrey Jay Fowler has a title that grabs attention.
D*ck Pics in the Garden of Eden is described as a playful and comedic take on the subsequent lives of Adam and Eve following their infamous exile.
It’s presented by award-winning theatre-makers The Last Great Hunt, makes its world premiere at Subiaco Theatre Centre on 16th November.
Now parenting their troubled children in the Garden of Suburbia, Eve begins to question her mediocre life and the societal expectation she should stay with Adam and serve him. Can she really step outside of the values around marriage and family that she’s also helped to establish for society?
Eden is a wasteland, everyone’s moved to the Garden of Suburbia (it does have the best mall after all) but all is not sunshine and rainbows there either.
Adam is sent on a retrieval mission after being caught sending a dick pic. Eve wants to win the local rose gardening competition. Cain has started an Only Fans account (he has no shame). Lilith is directing her first play, but she’s having trouble with an actor who said they’d get nude but now won’t. Lucifer has lost his edge. And stand-up comedian Dick Dickson, thinks it’s over for straight white male comedians in this new woke era… but actually he might not be that straight after all.
D*ck Pics in the Garden of Eden is promoted as a play about the human need to be seen and accepted while exploring the delicate moment we’re in right now where screens and the internet have forever reshaped human sexuality.
Award winning writer and director Jeffrey Jay Fowler (Fag/Stag, The Hypotheticals, A History of Drinking) said he wanted to make a show that could explore the confusion and the joy of existing as a sexual being.
“I wanted it to be fun but intelligent. However, it can be challenging to navigate the sexual politics of the world and to create a play with humour that deals with what is often a very serious and multi-faceted issue,” he said
“I have long been fascinated by the origins of shame and the negativity associated with sex. Though I am not a Christian, I grew up unconsciously accepting the underlying messages of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and accepting the idea of sex as forbidden and bad, and lust as a devilish danger,” Fowler said
“A lot of us are in a battle to feel positive about our bodies and our sex lives and depending on your gender and sexuality the pressures that you’re under may be different, but they will still be there all the same.”
“I’m fascinated by the spectrum of attitudes toward sex and pornography, from conservative to progressive, and how something as simple as photo of a body part can be viewed from wildly different perspectives.”
“The pornographisation of the world is all around us (and has changed rapidly in a short space of time in the digital world), and that to me makes it the perfect time to look at the origins of why we treat the naked body, and sex, the way we do,” Fowler said.
The show includes performances by Jo Morris, Iya Ware, Chris Isaacs, Arielle Gray, Tyrone Robinson, David Vikman, Ben Sutton and Joanna Tu. Fowler not only performs in the piece, but he’s also directed it too, while Fellow hunter Adriane Daff has served as dramaturg.
See the show when it takes up residence at the Subiaco Arts Centre from 16 November until 3rd December.
The company has highlighted that the production includes coarse language, adult themes, and sdscussions of sexual abuse and intimate partner violence.
OIP Staff
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