NAKED ONSTAGE FULL
I wore clean, nonsexy underwear, figuring I might at least be able to fake full nudity. I was nervous all morning waiting for my bathtub monologue. Setting light levels for each scene can take a long time, and then actors need to stay in place, quiet and still, while the director and designers communicate together. The day came for our tech rehearsal, when we set the lighting and sound for the show. Nobody’s gonna remember a few pounds, but they’ll certainly remember a bad performance. I really, really wanted to diet, but I knew from experience that it’s a bad idea – focus on the scene, not the body. I left my clothes on for rehearsals, of course, but opening night loomed ahead of me. While I didn’t particularly want to be nude onstage, the moment in the story – contemplating her state as she is most vulnerable, the water turning tepid around her – was too powerful to change. Or maybe she could be in the towel after the bath? We already saw her wake up in her underwear and fumble for clothes do we really need more than that? We do, he said. I tried to convince him we could do it in another setting: alone in the sleeping car or leaning on a wall in the hallway. I loved the scene in the story but didn’t want to actually do it in a tub. I had a long conversation with the director, my friend Erik. In the tub she gathers herself and manages to leave the train with her dignity intact. She wakes up hung over and regretful, then finds herself humiliated when he insists that she take a bath. She ends up drinking with and bedding a middle-aged businessman. It’s told from the point of view of a young bohemian woman, Meg, traveling across the country on a train. In 1999, I adapted and produced the fantastic Mary McCarthy short story “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt,” first published in 1941. And the only time I was completely, totally naked was a role I cast for myself. (Remind me to tell you about the time I unexpectedly started my period moments before my three-second-turnaround backstage costume change.)īut totally naked is different. There’s no time to worry about anything other than whether or not your underwear is clean. Every actor has done the lightening fast scene change that requires one stagehand to rip off your clothes, one to Velcro on your new outfit and one to swap your wigs - all while you’re holding your arms straight out, breathing deeply and switching dialects for your next character.
Taking clothes off in the presence of others is not unusual for an actor you do an onstage costume change with dim lighting between scenes or a love scene in which you unbutton your shirt until you’re left in your bra or, lordy knows, your character is arbitrarily described in some super sexy way and the costume designer has given you a skirt so short you can’t sit down without flashing the front row.Įven if you don’t strip on stage, you certainly do behind the scenes. I don’t recall the first time I undressed on a stage.
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