Taking it all off

CAST of “The Full Monty”

The musical version of “The Full Monty” is being staged here, and a lot is being made of its male leads’ decision to “go daring” by taking it all off for the play’s signature “full-monty” scene.

People who’ve seen the show abroad know what that could entail, but the local production is being teasingly coy about the details of how that scene will be executed here.

A split-second revelation? Silhouetted? Lit from behind, or with an overhead spot? Hmm…

Now, why would so much fuss and bother be stirred up by a brief view of nudity? Isn’t access to it these days as available as popcorn on the Internet? —Well, because it’s being done live, and because it’s being promoted and speculated about so feverishly. Go figure. If you go out of your way to see a show because somebody in it is going to take off his clothes, you may have a problem.

Our experience with stage nudity includes the time, a full two decades ago, when we saw Leo Martinez in the buff for his role in the controversial play, “Equus.” It was really brave of Leo to take it all off because “the role called for it,” and thus expose himself to all sorts of good-natured banter about his having revealed his “shortcomings” (he blamed it on the air-conditioning).

What was most striking about that viewing experience was the fact that we watched the performance beside our foreigner friend and colleague, who was the husband of the woman who dared to share the nude love scene with Leo. He was much more jittery about the scene than his wife!

Many years before that, we had also caught one of the first nude scenes in local theater, inserted to heat up a production of “Hair” at UP. But, that daring “group reveal” turned out to be a botch, because the scene was very dimly lit (maybe with just a solitary flashlight?), and the stripping guys and gals weren’t a very appetizing sight!

The most effective moments of stage nudity we’ve viewed have been in productions abroad. On our theater fellowship tour of the States, we caught a performance of the play, “Savages,” in Seattle, Washington, and there were four Fil-Am actors in the company who went completely naked without having any qualms about it.

But, our most extended exposure (no pun intended) to stage nudity was when we received an invitation to catch the special “laboratory” performance of a new play at the National Theater in London, England.

Only a few people were invited, because the play was a very complex and mature piece of work that required absolute realism, so the actor and actress who performed in it had to engage in graphic love scenes, which they naturally had to do in the buff.

To make things even more challenging for the performers and viewers alike, the acting space was so small that the “action” was only around three feet away from its viewers—who had a hard time looking “thoughtful” and blasé about the hot-to-trot bed scenes happening right in front of their bulging eyes! —So, flash nudity in “The Full Monty”? Ho and hum.