I don't recall Clara being on all-fours in the London production of Passion.
I do recall her having to lift the sheets a bit to give Michael Ball's groupies a brief glimpse of what they came for.
The most explicit production I've seen was a stage adaption of Maurice that toured the UK in the late 1990s. Superbly adapted and acted, the nudity and sexual activity between Maurice and Scudder were not in the least gratuitous but absolutely relevant and necessary, and ultimately succeeded where so many gratuitous productions fail.
In contrast to that I've also seen a recent production of The Romans in Britain whose original staging caused a national scandal in the early 1980s. The play itself was weak in its concepts and funny for the wrong reasons. Thus the notorious Roman-soldiers-meet-the-local-boys scene was something of an anti-climax.
Updated On: 2/15/09 at 07:05 AM