"The Shitheads is part period piece, part family drama and part allegorical epic. It unfolds at some time in prehistory (10,000 - 50,000 BC, to be exact). Nomadic hunter-gatherers coexist with a family of cannibalistic cave dwellers who justify their eating habits by dehumanising their human prey. Hunter-gatherers are 'shitheads', they say - inferior, stupid, without expansive interior lives. One of these cave-dwellers, a straight-talking fighter named Clare (Jacoba Williams - Vera), meets Greg (Jonny Khan - Statues), an endearing, simple-minded gatherer."
"Pacing around the dying animal, the humans explore each other's worlds and minds. "You can talk?!" asks Clare, raised to believe that 'shitheads' are dim. "You don't know what a funeral is?!" laughs Greg, shocked that burying family members alongside decaying animals is Clare's common practice. These are ostensibly the seeds of a humorous, world-expanding friendship for both characters - tools are shared, dreams recounted - until Clare brutally murders Greg and eats his brain."
"From here, the play lifts off into an experimental narrative about empathy, manipulation and revenge. Clare invites Greg's bereaved partner Danielle (Ami Tredrea - All of Us Strangers) and her baby (a puppet) to take refuge from the worsening climate in their family cave. (Unlike the gatherers, Clare's family stores beer, meat, and berries.) But the cave-dwelling patriarch Adrian (Peter Clements - Femme) is incensed by the 'shitheads' arrival. Old secrets come to light; his family do"
Set in prehistory (10,000–50,000 BC), the narrative contrasts nomadic hunter-gatherers with a cannibalistic cave-dwelling family that dehumanizes its human prey as 'shitheads'. A fighter named Clare befriends a simple-minded gatherer, Greg, and they collaborate to kill an elk represented by a massive three-person puppet. Conversations around the dying beast reveal cultural differences in speech, funerary practice, and tool use, forming an unlikely bond. Clare then murders and eats Greg's brain, propelling the story into themes of empathy, manipulation, and revenge as Clare shelters Greg's bereaved partner and baby and family secrets surface amid worsening climate tensions.
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