Nudity - the actor's POV

Leah Maher wrote:
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> Well I don't know if I would do it. Going out on stage in the nick (especially
> for a woman) DOES damage your credibility. I don't like the idea of circulating
> in the lobby afterwards and have everyone there thinking about how they just
> saw my pink bits. I think it may well lower me in their (particularly male) eyes
> to just a pair of exposed breasts.

I don't know what kind of men you hang out with Leah, but I seriously doubt if such a reality exists. But then, I can only speak for myself, and I'm an odd-bird when it comes to gender politics.

Maybe other men on this forum can address the allegation more accurately.

> Quite seriously folks, what will the audience be looking at, your groundbreaking
> performance, or your arse? As soon as you whip your top off, you could be
> creating the most moving and in depth charcter study in the known universe and
> no-one will notice. I don't think we've evolved that far.

Speak for yourself. I personally believe that if the director and actor have done their job, then the nudity will emerge organically... as a natural occurence in a logical sequence of actions and events.

Of course it's going to jar if you just "whip your top off" out of (or barely next to) context. The director has to make it a logical next step in the character's journey, and the actor has to play it as such, otherwise it's hardly sage that it won't work.

> I dont think it's a matter of commitment, I think it's a matter of none of us being
> mature enough to remove ourselves from the sexual element of nudity.

Again, speak for yourself, Leah.

Frankly, and with all due respect, I think you, and Gill, and the countless others out there who object to nudity and who use all of the standard arguments to try and justify the stance, are simply justifying - after the fact - a fundamental personal discomfort (whether moral, political, or in terms of body-image issues) with the idea of public nakedness. All of these (frankly, spurious) artistic arguments are so much false front.

All of your reasoning reveals a socio-political bias and not an artistic one. When Alan and Jill strip off to have sex at the end of "Equus", you think "exploitation"... whereas I think "vulnerability", awkwardness". In other words, I'm involved in the action... being carried by the drama and the emotion, rather than what you apparently do, which is to stand aloof and observe critically and intellectually.

I'm not in the slightest bit concerned with external socio-political agenda when I stage or perform a nude scene (I have done both). I am concerned with doing justice to the play... and if nudity is required, then nudity will be delivered, hopefully with enough substance behind it to make it work. Anything else would be censorship.

D.M.