Getting Undressed for the Theater

Never have there been so many naked male bodies on Los Angeles stages; in addition to singing, dancing and acting, performers in homo theatrical fare are more often than not required to do the full monty. Gay visibility? You bet your ass.

Does the increase in exposed buttocks and bollocks placate AIDS anxiety? Is it a kind of political affirmation, or just an old-fashioned ploy to fill houses?

This is the hot topic among gay theater artists and audiences - and one that Robert Schrock, artistic director of L.A.'s gay- and lesbian-identified Celebration Theater, wishes would go away. "It's a nonissue," he says. "If being naked helps define our culture, so what?"

Naked Boys Singing!, currently selling out at Schrock's theater, combines music and nudity in "a gratuitous musical," jokes playwright Tom Jacobson, who also serves as Celebration's literary manager. "When making reservations, some Celebration patrons ask us if there's nudity. It's one of the things gay men have come to expect in plays about themselves." (Jacobson wrote Cyberqueer, one of Celebration's biggest hits - in no, um, small part because of the flesh factor.)

"To write a serious play about gay life today is a tough sell unless there's entertainment value," says Jim Talbot, chairman of GLAAD's Los Angeles Theater Nominations Committee. "Nudity in gay plays is reminiscent of burlesque's function. Burlesque was for people who didn't want to just see a strip show. It gave them a bit of a story to assuage their guilt."

Talbot remarks how the bawdy environment encourages playwrights to compromise themselves. The central character in David Dillon's Party - a celibate priest who was neither alcoholic nor suicidal, and who embraced gay life - was "revolutionary," Talbot notes. "If Dillon had concentrated on that character and kept nudity in the background, he could have written a classic."

Only slightly more than a quarter of a century ago, the American theater began routinely to feature nudity on its stages, whether in the interests of high art (the Living Theater), musical theater (Hair, Let My People Come) or commercial schlock (Oh, Calcutta!). Reflecting the sexual revolution that was playing out on the streets, the naked body, in addition to being a vessel for expressing emotions, took on a certain dramatic cachet. Whether or not stripping down was intrinsic to the material, nakedness was intended to elicit a response: shock, titillation, arousal, emotional connection, all of the above. And to sell tickets.

In the early '70s, as gay liberation exploded, nudity in the nascent gay theater was inevitable. While The Boys in the Band kept their clothes on in 1968, the boys in subsequent gay plays began displaying more than their high-strung emotions.

I made my Los Angeles theatrical debut, appearing au naturel in Tom Eyen's The Dirtiest Show in Town, at the Ivar Theater in 1972. Eyen's sketch material, although considered bold in its day, was inherently sweet, celebrating all manifestations of sexuality while decrying the evils of war and pollution. While no one believed onstage nakedness would change the world, there was an innocence in our attempt to Say Something while slipping out of the clothes that bound us.

"Appearing naked in a gay play is a powerful public declaration," Jacobson says. "Gay theater has always proudly flouted conventional morality, often with nudity. Farther down the road, as gay issues are less and less of a big deal, the nudity won't mean as much to gay audiences."

Jimmy Shaw, who recently appeared naked in Dan Gerrity and Jeremy Lawrence's Melody Jones, is "flattered" by being objectified. "I'm not comfortable on a nude beach or taking a shower in public," he says, "but nudity is acceptable if you feel excited about what you're portraying to the audience. I played a character in denial about his sexuality. When he finally connects with another man, he's naked. The imagery is packed." So were the houses - in part because of Shaw's pulchritude, depicted in the advertising.

"I do think it feels empowering to walk up to a ticket window and say, 'Yes, one for Dicks on Parade,' and walk into the theater," acknowledges gay theatergoer Leland Bard. "It can feel like a special little opportunity to make an openly gay choice."

Gratuitous or not gratuitous: That is the question. When is nakedness justified? When it's "a metaphor for a character's vulnerability," Jacobson feels. In Tony Kushner's Angels in America, the character of Prior appearing naked in the clinic examining room is "a concise lesson in nudity," says Bard. "In 10 seconds of nudity, his vulnerability, physical weakness, the appearance of his K.S. lesions, his objectification as a patient in the medical routine are all told succinctly."

Jacobson cites what he considers an exploitative example: "In Blade to the Heat at the Taper, there was no reason for a shower scene except to get the subscribers steamy. The characters could have had that conversation anywhere, but it was staged in the shower because the actor had a spectacular body."

But director Ron Link justifies the nudity as "sensual and beautiful to look at. It's always justified if it's about beauty."