Nudity on & off B-way- Page 2

[kitkatgirl54]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 12:11am

are you mormon?

did you SEE the show?

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 12:18am

Was the Mormon comment directed at the author of the thread? I think Mormons like Alice in Wonderland, like everyone else. Except for this specific production, perhaps...

[kitkatgirl54]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 12:21am

haha i don't know, could be ...

but yeah the show would probably upset everyone involved. i'd say more than half of the audience walked out and the rest were friends of the cast. maybe one or 2 stayed for the 3-way girl on girl action that kept randomly happening for no reason.

[broadwaystar2b]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 12:30am

The only three Broadway shows I've seen nudity in were The Full Monty, Metamorphoses, and Rocky Horror. In TFM's and Metamorphoses' cases, the nudity was handled in a tasteful way. For TFM it was completely essential to the story and for Metamorphoses, the god of love naturally would be naked.
As for Rocky Horror, I didn't think it was necessary nor didn't I believe it added anything to the production, but I didn't find it particularly offensive either.
I don't think nudity in a show by itself is offensive; I believe when nudity is used solely for the shock factor but not necessasarily important to the show, then it's not worth to have onstage.

[sasha]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 2:23pm

I agree that there is far too much nudity in the theater today.

I get the feeling that it's assumed that the audience has no imagination.

There is nothing wrong with leaving something to one's imagination, is there?

[Coondiggitydogg]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 4:35pm

We are criticizing nudity for no reason in most of these plays and musicals the use of nudity is artisitic and not flaggarant like that of Girls Gone Wild.(which personally i dont mind.) but to say it is distasteful or wrong is ignorant. I would love to hear a real argument for how in W;t, or any other play the nudity does not show a part of the story, character, or understand of the plot. We were all born nude. We all have bits and pieces that are different it is life, it is the human body. We are the only creatures to cloth ourselves. Nudity on and off broadway is artistic and meaningful

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 4:45pm

I agree. Nudity onstage is rarely used to get the audience off. Even in something like Naked Boys Singing, the sexual arousal that is caused by the stage nudity falls by the wayside, and the nakedness in the show becomes a look at male insecurity over their bodies, and a celebration of being alive.

Posted: 8/9/04 at 7:54pm

What in the world is the puppetry of penis? Sounds really weird

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 7:58pm

It's a show that's been touring and playing around the world now. I think it originated with two Australian guys (with degrees in Computer Science, fyi), who discovered they had a "special" talent.

Anyway, they spend the entire evening taking their penis and pulling, squeezing, and moulding their penis to look like things (ie. the Eiffel Tower, a Big Mac). There's a camera focused on their privates that then projects the video onto a screen behind them. It's penis contortionism. I haven't seen it, but I heard it's not worth the money; a novelty show that gets dull after the first ten minutes.

Posted: 8/9/04 at 8:41pm

Two guys playing with themselves all the time yuck! yuck! yuck!

[DonelBee]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 10:40pm

People, PLEASE !!!!!

"If God had intended for us to walk around naked, we would have been born that way!"

Posted: 8/9/04 at 10:42pm

Wait what? I'm cofused (when am i not though?)what? We were born naked. Huh! I'm so confused!

Posted: 8/9/04 at 10:51pm

hey. if u sit close and look closely. during "contact" in rent, you can see right through angels white pants. i saw it twice. he never wears underwear during that part. ahhhhh

[DonelBee]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 10:52pm

Duhhh...!!!???

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 11:02pm

hey. if u sit close and look closely. during "contact" in rent, you can see right through angels white pants. i saw it twice. he never wears underwear during that part. ahhhhh



But that's not gratuitous nudity. It's Angel not wanting pantylines.

[virgil blessing2]

Posted: 8/9/04 at 11:17pm

Well, I have done full nudity onstage before in 2 plays; SOUL SURVIVOR and LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! Shows always advertise nudity thoroughly beforehand. (If they stupidly didn't, they should have.) Doing nudity onstage is no big whoop for me, it's a role, it's in the context of the plot. I do not mind seeing nudity onstage. I'm also ok with most stage violence. I have directed some plays like "KILLER JOE" and "UNIDENTIFIED HUMAN REMAINS AND THE TRUE NATURE OF LOVE". Again, it's a play.

So, like many things, it all boils down to this....if nudity and profanity don't sit well with you, simply do not go to that show. I never understand people who bemoan how they hate nudity and such, and THEN go see it. Many are uncomfortable with such material and they decline going to see such things, and that's great...that's their perogative and I wholly respect that. But people who kvetch about it and then go in knowing there will be nudity and profanity (due to advance warnings) and then come out squawking are ludicrous.

[Qfan]

Posted: 8/10/04 at 12:45am

thank you virgil

[dry2olives]

Posted: 8/10/04 at 1:25am

Ask yourself, when is the last time you saw a vagina on Broadway???? The answer is NEVER.

Actually the answer is last season. Heather Tom in Prymate.

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 8/10/04 at 11:04am

Thus, last season had two bared vaginas seen on Broadway...

Jumpers and Prymate

[kitkatgirl54]

Posted: 8/10/04 at 11:14am

"Nudity on and off broadway is artistic and meaningful"

I wish you all had seen Alice in Wonderland. That was solely and purely to get people off, there were at least 4 vaginas, and it was far worse than the girls gone wild nudity as far as tastelessness. so there is your exception. puppetry of the penis is a completely different thing, not sexual in any way except for a joke or two. i think nudity is perfectly fine as long as it doesn't cross the line. alice in wonderland crossed the line. it was far worse than a strip club .. basically the equivilant of live porn ... with no male nudity whatsoever.

i also thought the nudity in rocky horror was pointless. and apparently alice ripley's idea .. i don't really understand why that was in there.

Posted: 8/10/04 at 12:47pm

Personally I think it's ridiculous the amount of nudity that is in EVERYTHING these days. There is a reason why we wear clothes and why you can't walk into a McDonald's naked. After visiting other countries and coming back to the states I have realized how truly desensitized the Uited States population has become. We try to make an excuse for the reason we do things by saying that there's nothing wrong with it because it's ART...but that is what it is...an EXCUSE. If there's nothing wrong with it then why do you have to defend it. The average person does not walk around naked, reason being that we are to have clothes on. Someone can produce a show and get the same response with nudity as without so why is it necessary to have people running around like primitive neanderthals with their stuff hanging out. It's ridiculous!!!

[robbiej]

Posted: 8/10/04 at 12:57pm

'After visiting other countries and coming back to the states I have realized how truly desensitized the Uited States population has become.'

Which countries are you visiting? The ones that require women to wear birkas? Because in Europe, there's a whole lotta nudity going on. And it doesn't seem to be a big deal.

I sat through a rather awful play known as THE GAY NAKED PLAY. The audience was packed with people just dying to get a look at a cute gay boy naked. I would not say we are desensitized. I'd say the naked form is still as sexualized and taboo as it ever has been in the US (hyperbole, yes. but not too much).

Posted: 8/10/04 at 1:17pm

First, I am certainly not a prude, (the internet is for...)
From a personal experience, a friend of mine had one of his plays ("First Couple")produced at The Tiffany here in LA a few years back. It was about the first gay President. Touching and funny. At the same time, there were two other gay-themed shows in town, both had male nudity (Party and End of the World Party, i think). His play didn't need the nudity and he rightly stayed away from it. Sadly, so did a lot of the gay audience (key to a successful run of a gay-themed play) because the prevailing notion was "well, I could see 'First Couple,' but I hear there's naked men in the other play, so let's go see that."

I agree it's necessary to many a play, but not all of them, and sometimes is used strictly as a marketing tool. I guess in the difficult business of live theater, anything that creates a buzz is necessary. Most just don't deliver.

Posted: 8/10/04 at 1:34pm

haha...i saw TAKE ME OUT three times just for the nudity. Is that bad?

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/10/04 at 3:01pm

what really bothers me about broadway shows nowadays is not the nudity, but the lack of graphic sexuality. i mean can't we come out of the 50's and have some folks actually have sex on stage? i mean please, if chloe sevigny's willing to down vincent gallo on screen for real, i think it's about time that we had some men and women going at it on stage.

oh, and if they're going to go at it, i think they ought to be as realistic as possible and just dispense completely with the idea of condoms because nobody uses them anyway. let's keep it real on broadway. as a matter of fact, i volunteer to spearhead this campaign at joe's pub with laura bell bundy. lbb, i'm waiting for your call: we can be groudbreakers and a**-shakers.

Updated On: 8/10/04 at 03:01 PM