Stage Nudity: The Age-Old Debate
“Spring Awakening” (pictured) is about to open in London. That fact occasioned at least one London observer to ponder the question of the fully monty onstage. “I once sat through a fringe ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ in which the multiple couplings had the entire audience staring at each other, at the ceiling, or indeed anywhere at all rather than the stage, to avoid seeing the naked couple jiggling on the floor just a few feet from our noses. Is this just typical British prudery? Probably not. It’s more an acknowledgement that simulated sex on stage is more often ludicrous or coy rather than genuinely erotic and tenderly intimate.”
