Dick Tricksters Exhibit

Penis Puppeteers Simon Morley and David Friend like to play with themselves

— All will be revealed in show with a twist

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – Elton John packs his sunglasses. Bono brings his microphone. But all the “Lords of Genitalia” will bring to entertain South African audiences is their wedding tackle.

Australians Simon Morley and David Friend have been twisting their organs into shapes and projecting them on big screens to make people laugh for the past 10 years — or a “dickade”, as they call it.
“We travel pretty lightly. Just a couple of capes and a complete lack of shame,” Morley told the Sunday Times in a telephone interview this week.

Their Puppetry of the Penis show is set to tour Cape Town and Johannesburg in September.

The genital art was conceived by Morley in 1997 as a highbrow art calendar that showed 12 of Morley’s favorite penis installations or “dick tricks”.

Since then it has travelled around the world as a live show, with the duo appearing on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show, and has wowed celebrities including Hugh Grant, Naomi Campbell and Elton John.
The pair’s aim is to demystify and liberate the male genitalia.

“Flaccid male genitalia are so odd-looking, yet held in such reverence. We’d had enough, decided to kick off our pants, put it on a big video screen three storeys high, and let everyone have a good old-fashioned belly laugh at it for an hour,” Morley said. “After 10 minutes you could be looking at our elbows.”

The show is localised as much as physically possible for each country — South Africans can expect to see Morley doing “the hippo” and “Table Mountain” while Friend is “working on his springbok”.

“Table Mountain will be a variation of our Ayers Rock, one of the great natural wonders of the world. I have never been to South Africa and am looking forward to seeing Table Mountain for myself and hoping to be inspired. (I am) going to have to find a nice quiet spot where there are no kids around, and have a crack at it. Can I be arrested for that there?” he asked.

Curious theatre-goers should also watch out for startling impersonations of US President George Bush, and Yoda of Star Wars fame.

Morley credits his brother with getting him involved in playing with himself.

“We’ve taken the art of genital origami way too far, but I wouldn’t dare say we are the first to think of it. My brothers and I came up with a few, then years later I meet Friend, who had also come up with similar installations. I think every man has stepped out of the shower, looked in the mirror, and said ‘Hang on! What the hell does that look like?’

“This is secret men’s business, we all do it, just most of us grow out of it,” he said.

The most demanding part of the job is the travel — and finding understanding partners. Morley admits it was nerve-racking when his girlfriend watched her first show two months into their relationship.

“The show in the bedroom is a very different one,” he said.

Friend’s girlfriend has been with him for 10 years and “has been championing his behaviour right from the beginning”.

The African Christian Democratic Party slammed the show — which forms part of the Cape Town Comedy Festival.

The party’s president, the Rev Kenneth Meshoe, said that, without seeing the show, it seemed the actors were making jokes about their private parts.

“We join calls from the church urging people to boycott this form of debauchery that devalues the beauty of the human body,” Meshoe said.

However, festival producer Sam Hendrikse does not expect any complaints.

“The show is a global phenomenon. Not everyone has a prudish view on nudity,” Hendrikse said.

The Freedom of Expression Institute’s executive director, Jane Duncan, said the play did not fall within the XX schedule of the Film and Publications Act and therefore could not be prohibited.

“No one is forced to see the show; attendance is purely voluntary. If you don’t want to see penises on stage, don’t go and see it,” she said.

The show will carry an 18 age restriction.

Courtesy The Times: South Africa

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