Saturday night’s second performance of The Penis Monologues at Chicago’s DuSable Museum was filled with audience members wondering what the hoopla about the penis could be all about. Much to our delight and wonderment, an answer came.
The Penis Monologues is a timely response to the popular stage play The Vagina Monologues. Both plays dissect the most intimate part of the body and how the world and characters view that “special” part of their anatomy. Did you know there are over 100 words for the penis?
In actor-playwright Messiah Equiano’s introduction of his hit production, The Penis Monologues, he posed a question to the audience, “What is man’s best friend?” Shouts of dog were tossed to the stage. But much to the surprise of the audience, Equiano noted it is not the dog that is man’s best friend, but his penis. A man’s penis has been with him through all his significant hallmarks and events of his life: birth, adolescence, manhood, masturbation, cheating, affairs, relationships, marriage and divorce. The list goes on, but you get the idea.
For an hour and a half the audience is taken on a journey with the main character facing one dilemma after another, due for the most part, to his penis. The pace of the play was very good and it was filled with laughs throughout the show. Equiano’s cast of characters, wit and stage delivery made the performance flow seamlessly.
