At Boston Playwright’s today we were talking about onstage nudity. Specifically in the play by Leslie Epstein (head of the creative writing department at BU), “King of the Jews” that they put on a few years ago. The play had about three seconds of nudity in it. The character was tortured offstage and the burst back in, completely naked, and yelled, “Jews! They are killing me!” and then exited. End of act 1. By the way, I’m not completely sure of the punctuation on that quote. The script also called for a woman to rip open her shirt, exposing her breasts on a line about giving milk. This did not make it into the production.
It was really interesting to hear the people (work studies, teachers, theatre managers, and one director) talk about this in the office. Opinions were all over the map. One work study didn’t know that anyone ever got naked onstage and was horrified. She said she would feel personally assaulted if she went to a show and was surprised by a naked body. One of my bosses loved it, and thought that the play would have been significantly less powerful without it. My other boss thought it was unnecessary, but was unfazed by theatrical nudity in general. Everyone had a strong reaction to it regardless.
“King of the Jews” was and still is Boston Playwright’s bestselling show. There are many reasons for this, but I think the nudity was one of them. I remember when Equus came to broadway that was the reason that most of my friends in high school went to see it. If used well I think nudity can be both a theatrical devise and a moneymaker. By no means am I advocating random stripping onstage, but in truly motivated situations it can arrest the audience in a way mere words cannot. Is using our society’s obsession with covering and uncovering the human body as a marketing tool wise? More importantly, does it serve the art we are trying to make? If one really good nude scene in a play gives you your best profit ever, is it a worthwhile tool in a producers arsenal? I’m not sure of the answers. I just know that I would have definitely paid to see this show, and a large part of my decision would be made from my desire to gawk at another human’s naked body.
One Comment
alassar posted on October 19, 2011 at 7:37 pm
I’ve also been contemplating this idea of momentary nudity in shows. In Eqqus it seems to be necessary to the plot. Ditto Hair. But I saw a production of Cosi, a comedy about a troupe of actors putting on a play. During the production, the actors were rehearsing the play they were about to put on. Suddenly the lights went out, and when the pandemonium subsided and the lights came on, one of the players was completely naked. It was a quick gag about the man taking advantage of the blackout, and he immediately ran offstage. There was no use for the nudity other than to make the quick gag. It wasn’t advertised, I wasn’t expecting it. And I left feeling annoyed. I didn’t like that the company had used this man’s nudity as a quick gag. And i still can’t tell why I was so upset! Why was it so insulting to me to see a man shed his clothing for a quick joke? I saw Hair on Broadway and felt empowered by seeing the nudity. When is was so quick and only for a joke, I didn’t like it. There, that was long winded. And also, I definitely commented on this because you said nudity in the title.