[meg2001]

Originally Posted by Jobin

Meg

My top suggestion would be "A Thought in Three Parts" by Wallace Shawn.

In return, can I ask how the nudity in your own production was first broached? How did you or Lucy decide which of you was going to be the naked female? Was Lucy disappointed or relieved? Or was the nudity only decided on once you'd taken the role - in which case was it your idea, or did someone pluck up the courage to ask you - or just try stripping you? Was the request matter-of-fact or a big deal; your choice, or something expected of you as an actor? How did you and the group react to the knowledge that they were going to see their friend naked for the first time?

Thank you so much for the suggestion! It sounds like a great play!

I googled it and found that Wallace Shawn is the guy from the Princess Bride. Inconceivable! Haha, sorry. I read some reviews and it does sound intriguing. I’ll see if I can hunt down a copy of the script.

I’ll try to answer your questions about how the nudity came about. The amdram group I’m in has a reputation for and really a focus on provocative material. Before this we’ve only done plays, this is the first performance art piece. But all the plays were edgy, typically short-form pieces that we had developed on our own.

Not everyone who’s in the group has been nude yet, but I think it’s widely understood that any play and any role might involve nudity. If you’re not comfortable with that idea then you wouldn’t join the group. Or maybe we are all uncomfortable with the idea but confronting that discomfort is the reason we’re in it. Either way when we’re considering or developing a new piece, it’s always something that’s looming. And not just nudity, but what is going to be required of you to really deliver this performance that is going to be memorable and shocking for the audience. I think we all are interested to try to push ourselves beyond our comfort zone and so far everything we’ve done has been pretty rewarding.

So when the idea for Puppets was first discussed, the guy who presented it had thought it through a lot. And he proposed this piece about societal pressures and puppets and posers. We know from the beginning that sex and violence were going to be strong themes. And we knew from the beginning that we wanted it to be bold, provocative, memorable.

I was interested and volunteered right away. At the time I wasn’t sure what my role would be but I have caught the bug so to speak and want to be involved. Initially we all took turns with both roles and just did improv and experimentation where we would fluidly switch from puppet to poser and back. 6 of us (at the time) rehearsing at once was chaotic but we were starting to understand what worked and what didn’t. There was no nudity involved yet, but we all knew that would likely come.

Over the course of about a week a few things quickly became clear:
1. We needed to separate sex and violence into two different acts. Trying to incorporate them together was too interruptive and made it harder to follow the escalating narrative flow we wanted to achieve.
2. We needed to have dedicated puppets and posers. Switching between the two took away from the impressiveness of the feat of the puppets. I don’t know if it’s obvious but it’s incredibly physically challenging to hold certain positions still for extended periods of time. And the idea that you could just switch to a poser when your arm got tired took away some of the awe.

Because of my dance background it was quickly suggested that I be a puppet. I have good flexibility and balance and can hold interesting shapes for long periods of time. We decided that we wanted the violence act to be between two guys - we considered alternatives, but introducing gender into the equation we felt would be a distraction from the central message. And for the sex act, we debated two female puppets but again felt like the core message was about sexualization of individuals by society, not LGBTQ and keeping a traditional guy/girl pairing made that more focused. So I sort of fell into the role of the female puppet in the sex act because it just made the most sense

I think Lucy was a bit relieved but honestly she is also quite clever as a poser. It’s really up to the creativity of the posers to make sure that the act is engaging and she is full of innovative ideas. She is also quite horny and I think she got off on the idea of making Andrew and I do things. She admitted to a crush on Andrew and she is also bisexual, but that is neither here nor there.

Anyway I signed on to be the female sex puppet knowing that we wanted to include some level of nudity in the performance. I certainly did not imagine I would spread myself explicitly in front of the audience for extended periods of time. I said it before but it was just constant butterflies knowing I was going to be nude, and doing bold things, but now knowing how far we would go with things. But I sort of enjoy those butterflies, the knot in the stomach, the whole thing is a rush for me and that’s part of why I like to do it.

And from there it all just developed organically. We eased into the nudity over a number of rehearsals. It was quite thrilling and nerve wracking the first time my bra came off, the first time my panties slid down, etc. We didn’t really talk in advance about it (never said, like, today’s rehearsal I am going to take your panties off). We just tried more and more each time.

My consent was really my complicity. If I didn’t want the poser to strip me, expose me in a certain way, or have Andrew touch me in a particular place, I was always free to move or stop. But I never did. As I’ve said before we developed this trust. I think they knew not to take things too quickly for me and I was open to try slightly bolder things each time.

I remember the second rehearsal where I had been stripped fully nude, I was laying flat on my back, Lucy pulled my knees up so my feet were on the floor. Then she slowly started to spread my knees apart. I knew this meant that I would be exposing my vagina to everyone in the group for the first time. I can’t describe the mix of adrenaline, anxiety, arousal, and excitement that the moment had for me but I let her do it. It was intoxicating. And for the better part of a month, each rehearsal held many such moments. Each time we crossed a new boundary.

There was a lot of sexual tension in the air through all the rehearsals. We were striving for eroticism and we definitely all felt aroused by the experience. We talked about that and gave ourselves the allowance to be aroused. I think in most such productions there is this sort of faux professionalism denial - “it’s just a part I’m playing but it’s not at all arousing to me personally”. We sort of broke that down in this piece and said the objective here is this message of sexualization and eroticism. We want the audience to be aroused by what they see. And therefore we want to allow ourselves as performers to explore our own desires and fetishes.

It was a safe space for us to all explore the essence of arousal together. I think that gave Glenn the freedom to acknowledge and explore his foot fetish - and that was good because it’s a real thing in society. Similarly we played with themes of masturbation, domination, submission, exhibitionism, role play, degradation, lust, etc. Because those are all authentic reflections of sex in society.

And I think that’s why I feel like it’s okay for me to talk about this in the way I have here. Because we talked about it with each other and we acknowledged that we were all aroused by the whole thing.

It wouldn’t have worked to sit down at the beginning of each one and say - well today I’m going to try to put your hand on Andrew’s penis for the first time. They were just things that we experimented with spontaneously in the moment. And I think not knowing what was coming made it so much more exciting for me and to some extent I think that’s the experience the audience has as well.

We did always talk about things afterwards. Share our thoughts on what worked the best and what didn’t. What turned us on the most or what made us uncomfortable. So I could say things like I don’t think I want my anus in view for such an extended period of time haha. But we would sort of take the best bits from each night and then slowly developed a sequence and flow that we would begin to follow, introducing new things along the way.

Excuse the extended ramble but I wanted to try to give you a sense for how it came about. Feel free to ask any more questions!