Contested Bodies

The play centres on the relationship between acclaimed surgeon, Doctor James Barry, his African manservant, John and the then, Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Charles Henry Somerset. Barry lived his entire adult life as a man but was named Margret Ann at birth and was known as female in childhood. Barry’s biological sex only became widely known to the public and his colleagues after his death in 1865.

In Contested Bodies, things get down and dirty in the Governor’s residence when the three men decide, as part of their evening’s entertainment, to enact a lewd and lascivious play penned by the ultimate libertine and provocateur, the salacious Marquis de Sade. The enactment of the De Sade play reveals many unspoken truths and recalibrates the men’s friendship and relationship with each other. 

Play contains: strong language, nudity, violence, prejudice, and sex