Do you remember, Ernesto asks his best and oldest friend, Oscar, do you remember that time back in our university days when we broke into Felix Goluda’s room and woke him up by slapping him across the face with our cocks, do you remember the look on his face, the surprise, the shock, the fear, that was a laugh, how we fucking laughed, they agree, it was a laugh, a fucking laugh.
Now imagine someone shows up at your dad’s funeral, the body still stiff in the casket if you’ll excuse the pun and this guy, this visitor, a mourner if you like, he whips out his cock, his schlong, and he slaps your old man, your dear dead dad, across the face with his wedding tackle, not so fucking funny, is it? and Anna, Oscar’s wife and Ernesto’s friend, agrees that it’s not funny, not funny at all.
Fuck’s sake, Oscar says, some people have no sense of humour, they’re always looking for reasons to take offence, ruling things off limits or declaring them to be in poor taste, a Bad Joke even, like a misplaced cock at a funeral obviously but they don’t stop there, the list of things you can’t make jokes about is endless: terrorism, feminism, child abuse, and honestly if you can’t joke about those then what can you make a joke about, what is humour even for, next thing you’ll be telling me I can’t make a joke about murder either…
You can see Bad Joke (Mala broma) by Jordi Casanovas, translated by Tim Gutteridge and directed by Dadiow Lin at the Omnibus Theatre, 2 August 2019. Click here for information and booking. Cast: Edwin Nwachukwu Jr., Dilek Rose and David Ahmad.
Out of the Wings Festival 2019
Bad Joke is part of the Out of the Wings Festival 2019, a celebration of theatre from the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, held at the Omnibus Theatre, London. This year’s festival includes six dramatised readings of new English translations, a one-day conference, and three workshops.
Out of the Wings is supported by King’s College London with Goldsmiths University of London and Language Acts and Worldmaking.