Henry Miller Library hosts the stage premiere of a play based on Jake Luce’s erotic poetry.

One can find Jake Luce’s poetry chapbooks at the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur. He has released three of them to date and, with the support of the library, Luce has transformed the most recent volume, Sex Western, into a unique play.

The production is based on his erotica poems that he types on a typewriter, adding his signature two dots after each phrase. “If Céline [French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who used three dots between phrases] can do it, maybe I can get away with it,” he says, choosing his words carefully.

“The mic is on when they begin to make love..The sounds are reverberated and synthesized.. Awaking the mountains with ancient moans..She hears herself coming through the speaker.. It excites her..She begins to scream louder..”

The above words are from “Lady Song,” one of the narrative poems introduced to the play – not a western, Luce explains, but rather poetic moments of intimacy in Western culture.

Luce is humble when it comes to the big experiment that will take place at the outside stage at the library, itself a magical place. The production is possible due to a small grant Luce received from the library.

“These places are a rare treasure in a boring corporate world,” he says about the venue. “I feel like Henry Miller would approve of what we are doing and be sitting in the front row.”

What to expect? Definitely not cowboys. Embark on a sensual odyssey where the lines between reality and fantasy blur. Sex Western transports you to a world where heat shimmers, dreams whisper and desire reigns supreme. The rich soundscape evokes the poetry’s dreamlike essence, merging it with the raw energy of live performance. Experience raw, sensual acting that fearlessly explores the unspoken landscapes of the human heart.

From lust and longing to heartbreak and desire, the journey is through motel rooms, desert horizons and the luminous edges of erotic possibility, such as the fire of untamed connection.

The title refers to a joke Luce and his friends coined during a trip, reclaiming a Best Western hotel as Sex Western that led to reflections on sex and love in Western culture. The sold-out premiere is the only show scheduled, but perhaps it is only a beginning for Luce and his crew.

SEX WESTERN 7pm Friday, March 21. Henry Miller Memorial Library, 48603 Highway 1, Big Sur. $33 and up; sold out. 667-2574, henrymiller.org