Hump Day Crew

15 Jan 2009

Jerker

Arts, Comedy, Music, Society & Culture, TV & Film

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Bert and J.R. are San Francisco faggots. Their beauty transcends any considerations of age, race, body type or traditional â€˜good looksâ€™. Their eyes are alive and their voices are relaxed. They have facial hair, often in the fanciful styles of the Old West. They communicate through high-tech devices, yet never actually meet. They share sex, love, everyday life and ultimately death. Jerker is their story.

Told through the staging of 20 phone and internet conversations, Jerker is set on and around a double bed where two strangers exist in their own worlds. The two gay men never acknowledge each other face to face, although the actorâ€™s occupy the same space, communicating only through technology. Across the play, the characters form an intensely dependent relationship with shared experiences of sex, death, love and everyday life. By sharing a bed and yet never directly consummating their feelings, Jerker offers high homoerotic tensions. Considering current HIV infection rates are matching the mid-80s and the productionâ€™s strong and considered approach to this subject, Jerker, written in 1985, is an essential play for a new generation.

The Melbourne Production of Jerker is showing at Gasworks during Midsumma. For more information, please visit http://www.gasworks.org.au/