Debra Ehrhardt, who had a huge success ten years ago in L.A. with her captivating solo show Farewell, Jamaica, is back with a new one-person show, Cock-Tales. Written by Ehrhardt and directed by Joel (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) Zwick, Cock-Tales is an autobiographical work which deals frankly and boldly with sex. It’s not every woman who can talk about that subject—more specifically, about the male sex organ—in such an open, unblushing way, but Ehrhardt does it, with gusto and humor to boot. Even more remarkable is the way Ehrhardt, who grew up in a Seventh Day Adventist household, has been able to shake off that puritanical upbringing and live a sexually liberated life (though there still are times when she hears the disapproving voice of the church while she samples the joys of the flesh). It’s not just the battle between the flesh and the spirit that concerns Ehrhardt; it’s the hypocrisy of the so-called respectable men in her life. She came to that realization when she was 10 years old and discovered that her dearly beloved grandfather was having an affair with the family’s next-door neighbor. It was about that time, too, that her young cousin Freddie paid her a Jamaican dollar to touch his penis, an experience that, much to her surprise, she quite liked. She had an opposite reaction though, one of disgust and revulsion, when her preacher tried to force her to “touch him there.” At 18, Ehrhardt fled Jamaica for the USA. Many adventures—make that misadventures—with the “one-eyed snake” followed, beginning with her first job as a caretaker for a rich old man who made a pass at her, explaining that she had given him his first erection in two decades. Three years later, the still-virginal Ehrhardt married Joseph, a fellow-student at a Seventh Adventist university. He turned out to be so prudish and uptight about sex that he could only undress in the dark . . . and nearly fainted when she brought up the subject of oral sex (at the instigation of her new friend, Carolyn). Needless to say, the marriage did not last long, and Ehrhardt remained sexually unfulfilled and frustrated until she met an Englishman named John, who was a skilled seducer and lover. The sex she had with him was, as she tells it, mind-blowingly orgasmic and memorable. Hilarious as well. Ehrhardt’s flair and charisma as a performer are matched by the strength and brilliance of her writing. It’s those combined qualities that make Cock-Tales the great show it is.
