Monday, June 01, 2015

Full Frontal Male Nudity

We have been to an amazing number of plays lately.  I'm not even sure how we found time to fit them in between all the movies (including some esoteric but absolutely wonderful ones like The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared as well as Avengers and Pitch Perfect 2), MS Bike rides (85 miles), MHTA Spring Conference, Code Camp, and birthday parties and band concerts.  We've been to:

  • Peter Pan at the Children's Theatre Company - beautiful staging
  • Hairspray at Simley Theatre (high school) - best Simley musical so far
  • Narnia, the Ballet at the Ames Center - beautiful, although Aslan scared me
  • Bedroom Farce at Theatre in the Round - funny
  • War With the Newts at Sandbox Theatre - yes, based on the science fiction novel
And last weekend, the regional premiere of Black Tie at Theatre in the Round.  It wasn't until we got there and were sitting down that Eryn pointed inside the program at the line that indicated we would be treated to male nudity.  She was horrified and I think for a moment she thought we'd just pack it in.  But you know, art nudity.  It's not the same as gratuitous nudity.  So she spent most of the play waiting to put her hands over her eyes.  When the nudity scene finally came and the son flashed his mother (arguing about whether he wanted to get married) Eryn tensed and....they flashed the other way.  That's the joy of a 360 degree theater experience.  Sometimes the nudity is facing away from you.  I have a sneaky suspicion they realized the only 12 year old in the audience was on our side of the theater and chose to flash the other direction on purpose.  Almost disappointing given how worried Eryn was.

It was a very enjoyable play.  The father spends the play talking to his dead father and trying to reconcile the fact that all the thought he's put into being a proper wedding host means nothing in the end.  A happy ending in that respect, as he embraces the change despite considerable angst on his part, his son's part, his dead-father's part, and less so on his wife and daughter's part. 


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