So Tiresias’ Tits is a ridiculously over-the-top show based on an equally over-the-top French play from 1917 called Les Mamelles de Tiresias which was the origin of the word “surreal”. Our version has burlesque and dance numbers and clowning and singing and all kinds of spectacle.
Inside our heads it looks like this:
But in reality it probably looks a little more like this:
Setting the meta tone for the whole evening, the character of the Director comes out and does a spoken-word slam about the power of the imagination in creating a new and better world…
…and then we get down to the story. So there’s this white feminist named Therese and she lives in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Little Zanzibar with her husband, Mari, who is obsessed with bacon (kind of like most of the internet).
Therese is not happy. She feels very oppressed, probably because she’s read Eat, Pray, Love like five times and it seems REALLY unfair that she’s never been to India.
Although, to be fair, Mari IS the type of guy who spends all his time talking about starting a Mumford cover band and finding new foods to artisanally pickle.
I, Social Media, hang out with them all the time like I do with everyone, and I like to “help” by encouraging Therese’s passive-aggressive vaguebooking as well as crashing just before Mari hits “Post” on his latest rant about them misspelling his name on his Starbucks order.
Anyway, so we enter this less-than-idyllic domestic scene, Therese is reaching her breaking point with the sheer injustice of being a woman married to a man. Through the power of complete frustration, her breasts turn into balloons and she sets them free to float away.
Spontaneously, she grows a luxurious beard and decides to take to the streets as Tiresias, liberator of women.
Out in Little Zanzibar, we meet local politicians Presto and Lacouf, who are as corrupt as they are inept. Their fast friendship, based in a healthy mutual contempt, is threatened by an ongoing argument about the shifting borders between Lacouf’s Paris Heights development and Presto’s Little Zanzibar power base.
They also have an unfortunate habit of repeatedly fighting each other to the death. Like you do.
Back in the Therese and Mari household, Mari discovers his wife’s transformation and comes to the obvious conclusion—that she’s been murdered by this “Tiresias” asshole.
In order to ensure their escape, Tiresias fights Mari and subdues him, tying him to a chair and dressing him in Therese’s clothing to give themself a head start.
Also, there’s this chick in Little Zanzibar named Apolla who works the street corners as a busker. She’s lived there all her life and knows pretty much everyone, except that these fucking hipsters and basic white people keep moving into the neighborhood and NONE of them tip well.
Mari gets a visit from a self-narrating old-school detective who’s stumbled across the mysterious double murder of Presto and Lacouf, and who, taken in by Mari’s feminine charms, decides to also investigate the theft of the stars that Mari’s father put in Mari’s eyes.
Tiresias shows up in the streets of Little Zanzibar where Apolla is chilling with some of the local women, and is all, I HAVE A PINK PUSSY HAT AND I’M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT. Apolla and her buddies are all,
But Tiresias is just enough of an endearing doofus that eventually they’re all like, OK, maybe just *one* little flash mob.
Mari gets tired of wiping off the Detective’s slobber and is all, He thinks I’m a woman? Sure, why not, maybe he’ll help me find Tiresias if I flirt with him.
When Tiresias helps get the Detective off Apolla’s back, Apolla’s like,
…and the two of them get an actual Women’s Uprising off the ground. Tiresias insists that the cornerstone of this movement is to declare NO MORE BABIES until there is justice. Everyone’s like,
but also like,
Meanwhile, Lacouf and Presto are teaming up to oppress the Women of Little Zanzibar and squash their uprising, except of course they end up murdering each other again. So the Detective is like,
And Presto, who gets caught not being dead, manages to convince the Detective, Mari, and me to throw in together for a little mutual backroom dealing to help each other out.
Mari realizes that this NO MORE BABIES thing has dire consequences and decides that they will fill the void by spontaneously—and artisanally—having babies themself. 40,049 babies in one day, to be precise.
Mari is interviewed by an ambitious YouTube reporter who lures them into her dream of creating the ultimate reality TV show about how SUPER GREAT it is for men to give birth to thousands of children. Meanwhile every woman who’s ever had to beg for maternity leave is all,
Mari introduces some of the babies, who are all very successful at their respective careers and who make their appearance in a fashion that can best be described as
Out on the streets, Apolla’s been coaching Tiresias in the finer points of social justice work and protest culture, which results in Tiresias declaring themselves General Tiresias. Apolla is like,
And then Tiresias is like, I have your assignment right here and Apolla’s like, let me tell you what you can do with your assignment…
…and the Women of Little Zanzibar are like,
And Tiresias is like K Imma just try to make a graceful exit and is all
So then we come to the point where all this bullshit starts getting resolved, like the Detective sees the Reporter and is all
And Mari is all
And Therese comes in disguised as a psychic trying to figure out if Mari is willing to take them back,
Which turns out to be a big fat YES, but then Mari’s like, Hey, don’t you want your balloon boobs back? and Therese is like, nah, fam, but you do you–
—also, I’m super poly now and have all these wives.
So Mari’s like, well, I have all these babies, so
And then they have a big party and everyone’s invited and there are more boobs and it’s happy chaos and curtain call and then we all go out drinking at the Fringe bar.
So you should definitely come check it out.
You can enjoy the experience through me at @Eclectic.Mayhem on Instagram, on the Eclectic Mayhem Productions Facebook page, on Twitter as @EclecMayhemProd, or via any other internet shenanigans we’ll share over the course of Fringe, but nothing’s going to beat seeing these antics live and in person at the Lang – Atlas Performing Arts Center July 8th-22nd!
P.S. Don’t forget to vote for us for your favorite in the Audience Awards!
Written by Social Media, appearing in Tiresias’ Tits
You must be logged in to post a comment.