Ahh, grandma! Nooooooo!

MaxDepth

Diamond Member
Jun 12, 2001
8,758
43
91
When my grammie goes to NYC with her friends, they take in a broadway show or two. I always thought they went to something harmless like 'Cats' or 'Beauty and the Beast.'

From the online edition of the NY Post:
Pic of grandma (in the middle).

September 3, 2002 --
FORGET "The Full
Monty."

When the actors in "Take
Me Out" take out theirs,
there are no bright lights to
blind you - and no place to
hide.

Most of Richard
Greenberg's play, opening
Thursday at the Public
Theater after a triumphant
run at London's Donmar
Warehouse, is set in a
locker room.

There, a team much like
the Yankees - the
fictitious, rarely defeated
New York Empires - is
struggling with its star player's casual
revelation that he's gay.

What follows is not one, but three nude
scenes, two set in a communal shower - and
no team member is left unwashed.

While the sign at the box office warns you
that this show "will contain nudity," all that
onstage lathering-up several feet from the
front rows is putting some theatergoers in,
well, a lather.

"They look damn good," gushed Sally
Seigerman, a 75-year-old legal assitant from
Brooklyn who caught Saturday's matinee
performance. "I enjoyed it."

"I loved it," said Felicia Amacio, a
60-year-old Brooklyn retiree. "And the
nudity? That was very nice too."

Shirley Seligman, a 79-year-old receptionist
from Brooklyn, wasn't so sure.

"It wasn't offensive," she said. "But I
wondered why they had to have so much of
it."

Greenberg, author of last season's fully
clothed off-Broadway hit, "The Dazzle,"
says he isn't trying to shock.

"Very few people are shocked by that. It's
just part of the story," he said.

"It's a play about a gay guy coming into the
clubhouse, so the shower scene is primal
anxiety incarnate."

He says nudity is familiar territory to "Take
Me Out" director Joe Mantello - in whose
"Love! Valour! Compassion!" Nathan Lane,
wearing just an apron and high heels,
memorably mooned the audience.

Greenberg says he recently attended a
performance of Mantello's "Frankie &
Johnny in the Clair de Lune," in which Edie
Falco and Stanley Tucci, as the beleaguered
working-class lovers, appear in the nude.

"I actually saw a matinee with the
blue-haired ladies, and they weren't upset,
they weren't giggly . . . they were used to it,"
he says.

"Truth is, those blue-hairs had brown hair
when nudity started in the theater 30 years
ago."

Greenberg says it was Mantello who
suggested the first nude scene - in which one
of the players, the neurotic (and Chuck
Knoblauch-like) Toddy Koovitz, talks about
being "wracked with anxiety" about being
naked in front of Darren, the teammate who's
just come out.

As Toddy says this, however, he's parading
around stage starkers.

Judging from the happy faces in the mostly
mature crowd on Saturday, nobody's
complaining. Except perhaps Dominic
Fumusa, the actor who plays Toddy.

"It's a little weird," he said.

"You're on stage naked, looking at a
65-year-old woman and they're probably a
little wigged out. I guess that's not a bad
thing."

Unless the woman happens to be your mom -
but Fumusa's family has yet to see the show.

"I'm from the Midwest so it hasn't been a
problem. If it moves to Broadway I imagine
they'll come to see it - we'll deal with it
then."

The actor recalls drawing giggles the first
time he dropped his towel on stage - luckily
it was only a practice run.

"During rehearsal, most guys were in their
underwear. I just went cold turkey. I thought
it was best to dive in - not think about it.

"There's something liberating and freeing
about it. You have to go for it, otherwise
everyone feels uncomfortable."

Greenberg said the other actors - who are
required to soap themselves at length - aren't
bothered by it either.

"We saw 70 or 80 guys for these roles, and
only one actor passed because of the nudity,"
he said. "Actors are very relaxed about it.
The whole thing feels like another costume
option."

The only thing they worried about, here and
in London, was the temperature of the
shower water - "and not because of
shrinkage," he says, alluding to the infamous
"Seinfeld" episode, "but if the water's too
cold, there are health problems. In London,
the water was cold and they started catching
colds."

He says he was surprised to see, both at
London's Donmar Warehouse and at the
Public, the cautionary sign over the box
office.

"Maybe it's not really a warning," he mused.
"Maybe it's a kind of a tout."
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,414
8,356
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gay baseball players, what will they think of next.
 

Aquaman

Lifer
Dec 17, 1999
25,054
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0
They should go see the Puppetry of the Penis :D

Those crazy Ozzies :D

Cheers,
Aquaman