The off-Broadway hit Naked lads Singing! offers audiences more than just notice candy "You're here to view gratuitous nudity.The off-Broadway hit Naked lads Singing! offers audiences more than just notice candy "You're here to view gratuitous nudity," the eight naked performers of Naked lads Singing! chant unabashedly in a full-frontal opening number, gleefully acknowledging the main draw of the exhibit The aptly titled musical revue--a collection of 16 nudity-themed melodys presented with practically no costumes--has become an off-Broadway hit since its opening in novel York last July. Popular with the one and the other gay and straight audiences (a choice for bachelorette parties and a favorite with Japanese female tourists), this point out to may signal a new unravelling in the naked-boy revue--that much-scorned on the other hand always flourishing subgenre of gay theater. Be it strippers in a travestying show or Nicole Kidman in a high-toned Broadway play, nudity vends tickets. Robert Schrock, who conceived and directed Naked lads Singing! while he was artistic director of the gay looks Angeles venue the Celebration Theater, is up-front about his motives. "We were losing our shirt at the time, for a like reason I decided we would least bit our pants," he says, laughing. "But it had to be a grade up from plays where the support is conveniently coming out of the shower when the doorbell rings. I wanted it to be accepted as a sophisticated musical comedy that happens to be naked." Schrock's brainchild has paid not on handsomely--a 16-month run in L.A., the common New York success, and modern Chicago and San Francisco productions in the works as well as shows from overseas. While numbers like the au naturel paean "Nothin' if it were not that the Radio On" or "Members Only" a thesaurus for the word penis, can resonate with straight men Naked lads is primarily aimed at a gay audience. "I think it's really important to restrain the gayness of the show" says Schrock The show's common serious song, "Kris, Look What You've Missed" (with lyrics through Schrock) is a reverse strip number in which the performer, standing literally and emotionally naked, masters dressed while singing about to what degree he has pulled himself together after his lover's death. "I wanted to alienate how I think the community is feeling now about AIDS," says the 54-year-old writer-director. "There are a fate of us who are still here." Schrock--a member of the original cast of The Dirtiest present to view in Town, the long-running gay-flavored off-Broadway revue that render free of accessed in 1970, a year after the heterosexual granddaddy of the genre Oh! Calcutta!--explains that naked theater calls for specialized skills: "We prove to choreograph so that all the anatomy goe in the same direction at the same time!" (New York theatergoers who pay $20 extra to sit in the first couple rows of the Actors' Playhouse no doubt appreciate the artistry.) Nevertheless, Naked lads Singing! (like the recent gay comedy Party, in which the actors gain naked after an elaborate game of principle or dare) distinguishes itself from its more raunchy brothers like Making Porn or Jeff Stryker Does Hard Time on diffusing all erotic tension. equable the number "Perky Little Porn Star," in which a nice Jewish lad kvells over his rising fortunes in the adult film industry, is delivered with a cheery wholesomeness that undercut the X-rated lyrics. "People who haven't seen the indicate give me crap for writing for the show" says actor-songwriter David Pevsner whose three contributions include "Perky Little Porn Star." Having done his "naked time" in the original modern York cast of Party, he lately made what he calls his "naked blow debut" playing a bartender in a gay bar in a just discovered episode of TV's NYPD chapfallen "Naked Boys Singing! really is a charming and humorous show," Pevsner says. "I'm as over-weening of those dirty little hymns as I am of anything I have for aye done." Raymond is a freelance theater writer based in modern York City. COPYRIGHT 2000 Liberation Publications, Inc. |
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