This photo is just one of a rich selection featured on a Spanish languageblog called Photomanifiesto, published by Nicola Rocco. They record a theatre production of José Vicente Díaz Rojas' “Al Natural,” directed by José “Pepe” Domínguez. The play is about two contrasting brothers battling over an island paradise inheritance. Idealistic Renato is delighted that the inheritance happens to be a nudist retreat, but money-grubbing Ali wants to waste no time in turning it into a tourist resort. Reluctantly shedding his clothes, Ali visits the retreat in order to convince Renato of the error of his ways.
Looking at these charming photos, it's hard to escape the feeling that nudity is sorely underused in stage comedy. Decades of saucy end-of-the-pier entertainments are to blame, where bras pop off, trousers fall down and the audience are sexually titillated by a glimpse of flesh. In that situation, if you are laughing at all, you're laughing at the nude (or, in the essential prudishness of such entertainments, the topless or scantily clad.)
In this staging of “Al Natural,” you're laughing with the nude. Partly that's because the nudists, with their shared hippie-like ethos, outnumber the textile intruders. But it's also because the unadorned human body brings a new dimension to the characters. It makes them both less and more than the people we meet on the street. The vulnerability on display comically undercuts their pretensions and aspirations, but at the same time their revealed bodies speak to us on a sensual level, awakening our sympathy and tenderness. They become like characters in a Mozart opera, wrapped in lovely music.
For the actors, it must be both exhilarating and frightening to allow their bodies to sing to the audience in this way. The actress in the photo shown here strikes me as someone who has already mastered this new art. She combines delightful poise with a birdlike tension in the way she holds herself, a hint of defensiveness in the long curls tumbling over her breasts.
If anyone is arranging or taking part in a stage comedy featuring non-sexual nudity, why not write in and tell us about it?
