The Great American Nudie Spectacular. Photo by Tom Wood
With summer temperatures rising, now's the perfect time to shed some clothes and show some skin on the beach, right?
Actually, the beach isn't the only place to see some gorgeous flesh. National Pastime Theater hosts a new summer theater festival called Naked July—Art Stripped Down, which features seven productions filled with artily flashed flesh.
National Pastime artistic director Laurence Bryan took his inspiration from past seasons when National Pastime hosted MidTangent Productions' A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Queer Tale and particularly last summer when The Living Canvas presented Unsex Me Here. That production artfully blended elements of Shakespeare, performance-art painting and nudity into one cohesive production.
"It made perfect sense in July to have it tagged as 'naked,'" Bryan said. "What else is there to do in the hot summer?"
Filling out the festival line up proved to be an easier task than Bryan expected. Thanks to the boom in burlesque around Chicago, Bryan was able to recruit a few troupes right away that had already performed at the National Pastime.
The Girlie Q Variety Hour is on the burlesque bill with midnight Friday and Saturday performances through Aug. 1, while The Rippettes are performing a racy 1920s-theme revue called Speakeasy to Me at 10 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays July 9-Aug. 2.
The Living Canvas is back again, this time skipping Shakespeare for the Brothers Grimm. Nocturne promises to be a modern fairy tale for adults only. ( Performances are 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Aug. 1. ) Then Scratch Media gets into the mix with The Great American Nudie Spectacular ( July is the month when we celebrate American patriotism, after all ) . So wave your flag ( or other bits ) at 8 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays July 9 -Aug. 2.
Naked July also takes time out in the day for matinees with two weekend "brunch shows": Naked Girls Reading runs 2 p.m. Saturdays July 11-Aug. 1, while Afternoon Delight: A Seminar on the Female Orgasm is expounded upon at 2 p.m. Sundays July 12-Aug. 2.
But perhaps the Naked July festival's most distinguished production is the revival of the 2008 drama The Day on Which a Man Dies ( and with that title, you can expect it to be the most serious festival production as well ) . According to Bryan, its source of inspiration is a little-known Tennessee Williams story that re-images the death of famed modern artist Jackson Pollock.
Williams was a friend of Pollock. Williams wrote the drama as a lover's quarrel involving a pioneering artist and his lover who loses faith in him. And in an extra artistic twist, Williams drew inspiration from Japanese Noh Drama, which heavily feature ghosts and slow, methodical movement.
David Kaplan of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival directs the premiere Chicago production, which is then slated to travel to East Hampton, N.Y., in conjunction with the Pollock-Krasner Museum, and then on to Rhode Island for two more festival performances.
With all of the promised nudity ( or near-nudity ) , I asked Bryan if he was concerned about any authorities making a moralistic push to shut the festival down of arrest the actors. ( Hey, it has happened before! In the 1990s, a nude actor playing a male hustler in a professional production of John Guare play Six Degrees of Separation was arrested in Texas. )
"I welcome any local constabularies to view our shows," Bryan said. "If they give us a hard time, well, then they can be in the show, too. We're definitely here to provoke."
Tickets to all of the Naked July productions are $20 and can be purchased by calling 773-327-7077 or visiting www.npt2.com .
Numerous nudes
The National Pastime Theatre isn't the only place to catch a glimpse of naked males on stage this month. The Greenhouse Theater Center also hosts two based-upon-true-stories dramas that have male nudity scripted into the action.
Eclipse Theatre presents Guare's Olivier Award-winning Six Degrees of Separation from July 23 through Aug. 30, while Hubris Productions presents Martin Sherman's groundbreaking Bent from July 9 through Aug. 15.
Bent is about the persecution of gay men by the Nazis during World War II, while Six Degrees of Separation is all about a con artist who worked his way into the homes of wealthy East Coast families while posing at the son of Sidney Poitier.
Both works are significant 20th-century dramas. But if you need to convince your gay male friends to go along with you, just highlight the nudity.
Call 773-404-7336 or visit greenhousetheater.org for more information.
Bailiwick's back
There used to be a time when Bailiwick Repertory Theatre was the place to see naked male flesh on stage ( Naked Boys Singing and Barenaked Lads, anyone? ) . Many worried that the Bailiwick Repertory would disappear after it exited its Belmont Avenue home. But the Bailiwick has re-emerged with three shows at two venues this summer.
Already up and running at Mary's Attic is Bombs Away! ( a spoof of cut numbers from musicals ) , while The Cousins Grimm ( a queer take on fairytales ) and Two Spoons ( Peter Mercurio's gay marriage comedy ) respectively begin July 10 and July 15 at the Center on Halsted's Hoover-Leppen Theatre.
Call 773-883-1090 or visit www.bailiwick.org for more information.
( MysticImagesPhotography.com )
