Male Nudity & The Theatre

[13788]

TragicWhiteKnight: Here's a hypothetical question (like in 'Scruples'). Try and give a serious answer:

Your friend, a writer/director, has cast you as the lead in a small new play about an everyday failure and his workaday troubles. You play the part brilliantly and really want to do the show; however, there is a nude scene which will demonstrate your larger than average cock-size, which contrastswith the flawed, unsatisfactory nature of your character. How do you resolve this dilemma?

 

[Zot57]

I think it depends.

1. Are you comfortable doing a nude scene?
2. Did the director know of your endowment when he
cast you in the part?
3. Is it appropriate for the character you are playing?

For example, if the character is named "Dirk Diggler"
then perhaps the director had good reason for
asking casting you in the part.

-- Erik

 

[Pecker]

I'd do it.

I'd enjoy losing myself in the character and taking advantage of his being 'hung' to add to his desperation.

Imagine the audience learning for the first time about underwear not fitting, pants always showing a bulge, women turning him down because of his size, those subtle adjustments one makes when sitting or arising, etc.

It would be worthy of an award-winning performance, possibly the Tony (or even a new one: the Willie?)

"...and I want to thank the LPSG for their support..."

 

[13788]

gigantikok: Coming from the actor of this group:

I don't really know what i would do. As some of u may have read in the past, i am not yet comfortable with showing a bulge (let along being naked) in front of an audience. It just always makes me feel like it would overshadow the performance. Alot of people would be talking after the show about stuff like "did you see how big that guy's cock was?" as opposed to "did you see how great of an actor he was?". So, at this stage in my life, i wouldn't do it but that is because i am still going through training. It isn't life or death that i get work. However, once i am out in the world and I really need money, maybe i'd have to really think it through...maybe bet over some of my insecurities. How knows? ???

 

[13788]

hungwitz: Actually, showing a larger endowment might add to ironic nature of the character - even a large cock cannot make his life better - a real failure.

 

[13788]

Ineligible: The question, as TragicWhiteKnight put it, seems to be whether a large penis will fit the character. There are definite problems, I think, if the character is supposed to be an everyman - it will intrude on the audience's identification with the character. On the other hand, there is hungwitz's point; and we all know that it is possible simultaneously to have a large penis and to be insecure.

I would say it is an issue that should be brought up and discussed with the director as early as possible. Waiting until the first dress rehearsal wouldn't be fair. It's always possible that the director might choose to change the nude scene as a result.

 

[kurios]

Agree with Ineligible...Pull the Director aside and tell him your'e packing a big one. How does he want to handle it ( the scene I mean)

 

[13788]

gigantikok: oh, i misunderstood the post. That's interesting, it's almost like youre pulling a Brechtian technique on the audience. Alienation could serve as a great way of presenting the story. Brechtian theatre uses alienation as a tool to keep the audiences on their toes and keep them from becoming too involved with the play itself, so they can more accurately comment on what they saw afterwards. Presenting a character as a failure, then presenting a nude scene with a larger than average penis is just jarring enough to snap the audience out of the fantasy of theatre and really cause them to think. To think about the character, and to think about what they've seen. Not only does it seem as irony, but it serves to alienate. That's pretty interesting...

 

[13788]

bustyredhead: Okay.

As far as the play idea goes, I'd say that it's a good play on irony. Now, if we were to steal a page from "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", I could see a great story involving a main character who serves as the 'emasculated everyman' that suffers under the weight of society, with one of those smug stereotypical bosses. His ability to deal with women is less than superb. Take him home, strip him down, and expose the lithe, cut build and large dick beneath the clothes, and have him fail to realize how masculine he really is. In fact, you could even take this further, by making another character, female, whose appearance is quite particular and classically feminine, and then expose her personality as being quite different. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but the play on people's assumptions could be interesting.

- Nene (Scribbling Notes On A Napkin)

 

[johnstone1985]

[quote author=hungwitz link=board=relationships;num=1058902641;start=0#4 date=07/22/03 at 16:25:43]Actually, showing a larger endowment might add to ironic nature of the character - even a large cock cannot make his life better - a real failure.[/quote]

I'm with hungwitz, it could be symbolic and change the whole story of the play into something different. His life isn't a failure because of circumstances or the cards he has been dealt in life, but because being a failure is the only thing he is good at, and in reality, the only thing he is comfortable being.

 

[Zot57]

Did anyone else here see the movie "Crumb"?

It's a documentary about a cartoonist named Robert Crumb.

It talks about him growing up as sort of an outcast
and then later on it goes on to talk about him having
a really huge penis ...

-- Erik


p.s.

found a link ...

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0109508

 

[13788]

TragicWhiteKnight: Great documentary, that 'Crumb'. Though I think the schlong-outcast corollary is kinda dubious; while it highlights his size, its more to show what a wacky bundle of characteristics he was. And perhaps as a sign of genius/greatness (even modesty).

But he invented the phrase "Keep on Trucking", so he must be shot...

 

[13788]

gigantikok: oddly enough, i saw Crumb and I remembered liking it, but i never remember any references to his penis. :-/ I suppose they were subtle and maybe i wasn't paying attenion.

 

[13788]

Longhornjok: Did any one see the recent SEX AND THE CITY episode where Samantha's current amour walks onto stage and unhooks his overalls before starting his monologue? In the episode, someone asks Samantha if her guy was good in the play and she admits that she wasn't focused on his acting. However, she volunteers her p.r. services and goes to the show again (with a big crowd she's wrangled), and she is able to actually listen and enjoy his work as opposed to his anatomy. There's no mention of him being hung or not being hung, but it highlights the salacious effect nudity still has on most people in that setting, I think.

P.S. I don't remember penile references in CRUMB, either, although I wouldn't have been interested in seeing it any way. ha

 

[13788]

awellhungboi: Curiously, I was thinking about that scene in Crumb the other day.  It's just a brief mention, really.  He's at this photo shoot for I believe, Leg Show magazine (the movie deals a lot with Crumb's foot and leg fetish) and the editor of the magainze is being interviewed by the filmmaker, and she says something like, (not a direct quote, I haven't seen the movie in a few years) "He's just like those guys in his drawings.  He has one of the biggest dicks in the world!"  It's not, to my recollection, mentioned again.  

To keep on topic, I would definitely do the nude scene, and I probably wouldn't say anything to the director about my size, probably because I wouldn't even be thinking about it in that way--be too busy trying to remember my lines, the blocking, etc.  Unless there were references in the script about the character being small, and then I might have to say something about it to avoid contradiction.  In terms of the script being about a guy who's a failure, I don't think a big dick, (or a small or medium one) is a sign of success or failure, to tell you the truth.  But I may be in the minority on that one.

 

[txquis]

Well...I am also a professional actor,
and.. i have not been presented with this dilemma in my own life. I like to think that my acting ability would allow me to play anything....even a nude guy

Off topic, but this reminds me of something about the Broadway musical version of FULL MONTY...un the film, where you dont actually see the guy's completely naked (even though many who have seen the film insist that you do...the film cuts just as they pull off their gstrings)....in the stage musical, you do, for about 5 seconds see the guys naked.

The interesting thing i noticed was that the actor who played the character named HORSE, with the huge shlong, did not really have the biggest flaccid cock....but, hey....he was perfect for the part otherwise i guess.
And, the guy who played the lead...who is one of the characters who is marveling at Horse's endowment actually had a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGGE swinging flaccid cock.
I thought..."ok....these guys werent chosen for these parts by their actual cocksize...interesting".

I realize this isnt adressing the original post.

I would do a nude scene i guess....it has just never come up..um...so to speak. HAAAA

 

[13788]

JeffS: I don't understand why a person having a larger than average penis would "contradict his flaws"..... You make it sound like having a large penis would completely overshadow his failures, and also as if having a....*gasp*.... average sized penis would be seen as a shortcoming. I don't think penis size has anything whatsoever to do with whether or not a person would be viewed as being a "failure". It's just a penis.