Interview: Genevieve Goodman & Jillian Roche - What if Adam ate the apple instead of Eve?

What if Adam ate the apple instead of Eve? Well, that is, in reality, only a question. The show is written by Genevieve Goodman and directed by Jillian Roche, based in New York. A new comedy play that is taking over the Fringe this August.

Ticket link: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/eve-and-adam
Venue: Haldane Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall
When: 17th - 29th August (not performing on 23rd)

Could you tell us a bit more about yourself and the show?

Genevieve Goodman: Eve & Adam is a brand new comedy produced by Little Darlings, an New York comedy collective. Critics (our moms) say Little Darlings is the cutest comedy group there is. Formed at NYU Tisch, they’ve performed & put up work at theaters across NYC, including Second City, UCB, BCC, The Tank, and more.

Playwright Genevieve Goodman is a bicoastal writer, performer, and producer. You may have seen her on the Viall Files, producing the BFFs podcast, or openly reading fairy smut on the New York City subway in very large font.

The show is set in a near-future world where Tr*mp has been elected for a third term, with Elon Musk as his VP, the environment is royally screwed, and capitalisation reigns supreme. So, our heroine, fueled by the dystopian novels she consumes, travels back in time to the Garden of Eden to persuade Adam—not Eve—to bite the forbidden fruit. Combining sharp satire with biblical mythology, Eve & Adam is a bold and hilarious exploration of gender, power, and the stories we inherit.

You’re coming all the way from New York! How did you get involved with the Edinburgh Fringe, and how does it feel to bring this show to Scotland?

Genevieve Goodman: I’ve wanted to bring a show to Fringe for years. It has an almost mythical reputation among theatre makers as the place where wonderfully ambitious, slightly unhinged ideas are allowed to exist. A comedy about rewriting the Original Sin felt like exactly the sort of thing that belongs here.

Bringing the show to Scotland feels surreal. We wrote this play in New York, but it's always been about stories that belong to everyone. Adam and Eve have somehow survived thousands of years, countless translations, and several very questionable paintings. It's exciting to add our own slightly chaotic version to that conversation.

In the story, the main character travels back in time to make Adam eat the apple instead of Eve. If that actually happened, how do you think the world would be different today?

Genevieve Goodman: Taylor Swift would get a lot less hate. Women would get lunch breaks, but for shopping. Sephora would have a sale 3x a year, not just 2. Trump would never have been elected president, especially not twice. Women would be paid the same amount as men, and have functional pockets. And guys would have to go through childbirth. It’d probably go down belly down out the butt style. But I suspect the world would still be a very complicated place. One of the main ideas in the play is that history is rarely changed by a single decision, no matter how tempting it is to believe otherwise.

The show has a lot of humor but also talks about modern dating and romance. How was that to turn a classic Bible story into a funny comedy about relationships?

Genevieve Goodman: We approached the Bible first as literature and only then as mythology. It's one of the oldest stories we keep returning to, and every generation seems compelled to ask it different questions.

For us, that question became: what happens if you view Eden not as the birthplace of sin, but as the site of the first relationship. Suddenly it becomes a story about communication, expectations, blame, desire, and two people trying to make sense of one another.

What do you hope audiences will take away from the show?

Jillian Roche: Eve and Adam is a hilarious satire of modern womanhood, yet, at the play's core, we see the beauty in the shared experiences of women throughout the globe and throughout time–starting, of course, with Eve. Edinburgh Fringe audiences will come for a night of laughs and leave feeling more connected to each other.

Besides your own show, what are you most excited to see or do while you are performing at the Edinburgh Fringe?

Jillian Roche & Genevieve Goodman: Rat Candy, Megasquirt, and Improvised Couples Therapy!

If you had to describe the show in only three words to make people eager to come and see it, what would they be?

Jillian Roche & Genevieve Goodman: Biblical. Chaotic. Romantic.