Broadway Bared

BY: PROVOKR Staff

 

Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune (2002)

This revival of the two-character Terrence McNally play about a date between a down-on-their-romantic-luck waitress (Edie Falco) and short-order cook (Stanley Tucci) drew a lot of press attention for the casual nudity displayed by both actors (pictured above). “This play is about two people who are having sex, and there’s sort of no way to make an audience believe it if when you get out of bed you have your clothes on,” said Falco. As one critic explained, “McNally uses the fact that his characters literally let it all hang out as a metaphor for how the two of them figuratively let their feelings hang out.”

 

Take Me Out (2003)

Richard Greenberg’s play about a baseball player (Daniel Sunjata) who announces he’s gay became notorious for its shower scene in which the members of the team lather up completely in the nude. Audience members were known to bring binoculars to the theater to make sure they didn’t miss the good parts. “Presumably, they’re just trying to see what’s going on on stage,” said Sunjata at the time. “But if they use them during the shower scene, I’m sure they’re looking at other things.”

 

The Blue Room (1998)

David Hare’s two-character comedy—which premiered in London before heading to Broadway—starred Nicole Kidman and Iain Glen (currently playing Ser Jorah Mormont on Game of Thrones), pictured above. Although Kidman appeared naked on stage for less than a minute, her nudity became the talk of the theater world and enticed one British critic to label her appearance as “pure theatrical Viagra.” Glen’s nudity came with a bit of acrobatics—he did a cartwheel in the buff during the play’s second act.

 

The Graduate (2002)

Pulling out the stops in her stage portrayal of Mrs. Robinson, Kathleen Turner (above), then 46, bared all for the infamous seduction scene of Benjamin Braddock (Jason Biggs). The way it was staged, Turner stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, dropped it and then continued to do the rest of the scene completely naked. “At the moment the towel came off, a gasp went round the audience,” one theatergoer told the press. “Then, as soon as the curtain closed, everyone was turning to their neighbor and talking about it.”

 

Equus (2008)

“When you take your clothes off—whoever you are—there’s very little acting going on,” said Daniel Radcliffe (above), who went au naturel while starring in Equus, the play about a boy who harbors a sexual fixation with horses. “You are standing on stage thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m naked. They are all looking at my bits…’ There are mobile phones up in the air but you are trying not to notice.”

 

Indiscretions (1995)

In one of his earliest acting roles, Jude Law nabbed a Tony nomination for playing the emotionally naive son of an overbearing mother in the Jean Cocteau play. The script called for Law to start Act Two soaking in a bathtub and then emerging naked to dry himself off. “I was working with a director who was like, ‘No, no, no faking,’ ” recalled Law. “On one night the guys that set it up thought it would be really funny to make the water ice cold… which has a couple of effects on a man. One I’ll leave to your imagination.”

 

Hair (1968)

The hippie generation made its presence felt on Broadway with this iconoclastic rock musical. Hair was an avant-garde piece of theater due to the frank way it dealt with drug use, sexuality, race relations and one controversial nude scene that was inspired by two men who disrobed to antagonize the police during an anti-Vietnam War protest. One of the writers of Hair, James Rado, described the musical as a “cry for freedom” reflecting the rebellious reality of the era.

 

Oh! Calcutta! (originally debuted on Broadway in 1969; revival debuted in 1976)

Dubbed “the longest-running erotic musical comedy in the world,” Oh! Calcutta! was a revue that consisted of salacious sketches and songs written by the likes of Samuel Beckett, John Lennon and Sam Shepard. The cast performed many of the sketches in the nude. The New York Times theater critic Clive Barnes was not particularly impressed by the original production. “The humor is so doggedly sophomoric and soporific,” he wrote. “However, the nude scenes, while derivative, are attractive enough.”