Heard any good dick jokes lately? I have, and some fairly average ones too, having just seen THE VIAGRA MONOLOGUES, a three-man show about men’s changing relationships with their crown jewels as they go through the journey of life from infancy to old age. In fact, for the best part of this hour-and-a-half show, it was ‘all hands on dick’, metaphorically at least.
Having said that, the show offered so much more. As a natural and obvious counterpoint to the hugely successful Vagina Monologues, Geraldine Brophy (yes, it was written by a woman) ventures where few have previously gone.
As she states in the program notes, men are not noted for being particularly forthcoming when discussing sexuality and intimacy unless it’s of ‘a fantastical nature’, but ‘parenthood, marriage, celibacy, puberty, and virginity are all complex things that influence human experience, for better or worse’.The Viagra Monologue worked for me in the same way that any good theatre does – the writing and the acting were both exceptional. The three performers – Tom Matthews, John Molyneux, and Maynard Penalosa – made their characters and yarns believable.
They offered unique and heartfelt portrayals of men struggling with the nature of their sex lives and their human relationships (with their dicks as a powerful metaphor), due to changing life circumstances and ageing.
One way to interpret this might be to say that men see the world through the eye of their dicks, and to some extent that might be true, especially if you’re a grossly oversexed teenager, like the one depicted in this piece.
Some of the yarns were easier to relate to than others. I never got the whole teenage group masturbation thing and I don’t know anyone who’s ever done it, or would admit to it. Who knows, had the opportunity ever arisen it may have provided me with some of my fondest memories from adolescence, but I doubt it.
Come to think of it I don’t remember much discussion of dicks at all with my mates at that time, though it was funny that the obsessed teenager in this show was a huge Rugby League fan. Was that just a coincidence or are we to believe that teenage fans of that particular code are more dick-obsessed than other teenagers? Who knows, maybe they are.
Another memorable scene was with the male prostitute, as he prefers to be known, who is actually gay and just has sex with women for money, reducing his dick, as he put it, to ‘a tool of the trade’.
I also found the priest’s explanation for his own celibacy fascinating, in that he was constantly struggling between fundamental human lust and his faith and vows.
What was also interesting was how the intensity of the dick references diminished as the characters aged and was overtaken by the need to feel genuine love and affection. In the end, as the program states, The Viagra Monologues is fundamentally about respect, regardless of gender or sexual connection’.
Overall, The Viagra Monologues was funny, thoughtful and provocative in equal measure, something the director Samuel Lucas Allen and the cast and crew can be justifiably proud of.
Off The Avenue’s production of Geraldine Brophy’s VIAGRA MONOLOGUES, directed by Samuel Lucas Allen, is playing the Blood Moon theatre, 24 Bayswater Road, Kings Cross until 2 July, 2016.
http://www.offtheavenue.com.au