Drama dilemma

[hazliya]

So, I'm directing elenuial's play Walt and Wilde for New Voices next weekend (you should all definitely come see the festival! elenuial and I are involved in 5 out of 12 plays over the span of 2 hours!) and am having a small crisis.

One scene in particular calls for the actor playing Walt Whitman to be completely naked onstage, as he's drunk and brawling with Oscar Wilde. This is where my decision-making capacities fail me. The actor himself has said that while he's not really behind the necessity of said nudity, he'll go ahead and be fully naked if I tell him it's my creative decision as the director to do so. And elenuial, the playwright, has made it clear that while it's ultimately my call, he strongly prefers the nudity.

I am ambivalent, which is completely unhelpful to everyone involved. I need to make a decision, but I keep waffling and would really like some opinions. Thus, I list the arguments for and against full nudity:

FOR
Historical context ("Whitman's naked again - must be tuesday.")
Playwright's preference
Physical gag (for lack of a better term)

AGAINST
Children under 13 and squeamish adults in the audience
Quick change issues (which can be worked with creatively)
Actor covered in horribly anachronistic tattoos (which aren't really a problem)
Brawling naked may be hazardous to sensitive parts
Brawling naked on a stage unsafe for bare feet is definitely hazardous to bare sensitive parts

There are others, but those are the big ones. Personal safety, preferences, etc..

It's been suggested that he strip down to underwear, which gets him mostly naked and keeps up the drunk mannerisms, but it's been counter-argued that period underwear was long johns. That deflated Plan A, unless we can find other underwear. That's what I'd prefer to do at this point as a kind of compromise.

Something that worries me as well is the fact that when they fight, they knock each other around. A lot. Tackling, slamming onto the floor, etc. And it's a hot, sweaty theatre with splinters on the floor. It usually ends with Whitman landing on his back and/or butt, and I'm worried about the last two "against" points at that part of the show.

Another big thing is that if we do have full frontal nudity, it'll definitely set the tone of the rest of the play and has a shock factor. Also, I've been told that if it does come down to nudity, there are a bunch of people who won't come see the play because of it. Which is disappointing, but understandable. The audience thing is a big reason I'm leaning toward mostly nude rather than total.

And I don't want the audience to be so distracted by "HOLY CRAP NAKED" that they miss the play itself. This happened with another production that involved nudity, and as much as I want to avoid that, there's no way to ensure that the entire audience will be cool about it.

There's also the fact that I really want elenuial to enjoy the play, and the script calls for nudity. His script. Even though the director does make the artistic decisions, I want him to like those decisions.

The worst thing is that this is completely a judgment call. I can't cop out with something like "Oh, I just chickened out" or "Oh, I totally didn't notice he was naked. Was that bad?"

Comments, please.

-H

Comments

[zoupmachine.livejournal.com]

STRAP ONS!

[jalawingedone.livejournal.com]

Of course, with fakes, you run into the same distraction problem as you had with the nudity, except now it's edgy and funny for a greater percentage of the audience who might have thought it was edgy and vulgar. The simulated route sounds like an OK compromise, but you'd have to very carefully avoid Greek comedy-style exaggeration.