Hip-Shot: ‘The Naked Party’
The Naked Party
The Shop at Fort Fringe
Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 25 @ 10:30 PM; Saturday, July 26 @ 11 PM; Sunday, July 27 @ 2:30 PM
They say: “A hot new play that gives an intimate and honest look at exactly how much there is to lose when you decide to reveal yourself. The Naked Party takes nine students and strips them of their costumes, armor (and inhibitions) in order to fully see themselves for the first time.”
Brian’s take: All right, I’ll admit it. I may have been to a naked party or two. Ok, fine, and by “two” I mean two dozen. And maybe, just maybe a handful of those were held in my living room. So what? I’m not ashamed. We nibbled sashimi and rhapsodized about Kant, you know, normal Saturday night stuff. Hell, the New York Times covered a naked party I helped host–that’s gotta lend a guy some credibility, right?
Maybe not. However, I do feel particularly qualified to offer my opinion of The Naked Party, which has been selling out the Shop at Fort Fringe. There are elements of the show that work very nicely, such as a conceit by which every party-goer gets time in a closet to undress while airing their inner feelings. Likewise with the staging–maneuvering 9 actors around a space as small as the Shop with quite a few set pieces is no easy task, and playwright-director Jason Schlafstein manages to minimize traffic jams while keeping the picture dynamic and balanced. And I have to give a shout-out to Guitar Guy, a character that might have been forgettable had not Rob Shand done such a superb job engaging (and, at all the appropriate times, blissfully disengaging) with the silliness around him. Plus he reminds me of about 15 of my buddies rolled into one.
It’s actually quite remarkable how Guitar Guy, who has very few lines and integration with the main action, emerges more fully than some of the more prominent characters. My first thought upon leaving the theater was that Schlafstein should excise a character or two–Julie, perhaps, or Jordan, who both seem to represent the same moral conundrum. But the concept for this play poses a logistical dilemma: it requires a quorum in order to put the party in “naked party,” and each member of this quorum, if the play is to reach its potential, must be more fully fleshed out.
Not that there isn’t plenty of flesh. This ensemble delivers on all the scrotal and mammarian promises of its show’s title. In my real world experience, naked parties are great equalizers: that hottie you normally drool over looks a bit more average sans clothes, and that untouchable you thought might make you queasy strikes you as a little better-looking than expected. That seems to be an unspoken lesson here. But what I find most interesting about nudity on stage is that it is one of the few instances in which an actor’s action is completely unified with that of his or her character. At the outset of this play, both Budman and AJ Cooke, the actor who plays him, have the same objective–to get naked in front of an audience–and that self-conscious synchronicity makes for a unique electricity in the theater. (Although I can’t be sure, I think both character and actor got synchronously wasted in the theater as well.)
The acting is uneven–but everyone in the ensemble is at least competent, if not strong. And whatever, you’ve got to give credit to anyone who is willing to run around naked for an hour in front of a roomful of judgmental strangers (and critics, no less!) Adlerian training or not, that cast has serious balls–at least half of them real and jangly, the remainder metaphoric.
I had a lot of fun at this show, but I will say this: I’ve had a lot of fun at a lot of shows. To all those people who stood for 75 minutes in the oppressive heat of the shop at 11 o’clock at night, the smell of sweat indigenous to very specific bodily crevices wafting through the rafters, I am impressed by your dedication. Now take that dedication and go see another production that, while it may feature performers in full dress, still deserves at least as many audience members as The Naked Party. I’ll let you know when I’m holding the next real one in my living room. Maybe this time we can invite the Post.
See it if: You believe that, like your own naked ass, theater can be endearing in its imperfections.
Skip it if: Butt hair makes you squeamish.
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9:10 am
Really? You’re kidding, right? Ask yourself: if the actors did not take their clothes off, would anybody be bothering to go see this?
Of course not, because it’s a snoozer. The plot is an episode of Dawson’s Creek, the characters are cardboard. In what college are two nerds, a frat guy, and a lesbian best friends?
Exactly: at no place in the real world.
9:38 am
I have to give credit to Brian for a spot-on review, but also to Mike’s comment that the play’s nudity was trying to cover up for lack of a compelling story. Once you get over the fact that yes, they actually are naked, you wonder how much longer it has to last. I’ve seen a half dozen other fringe shows that I wished were alloted 75 minutes. That being said, the concept and their execution was a conversation starter–which by some measure is more important in Fringe than the actual performance quality. I’m also appreciative that Brian used the tag “Butt hair”–how else would I have ever been able to find this review in my search…
9:53 am
On July 13, 2008, at 12:15 PM, an avatar named “Russ” posted the following comment on DCTheatreScene’s review of The Naked Party:
“Are you kidding me? If they had been wearing clothes, I would have walked out! The plot was poor, the characters were all types and not believable. The actors did their best, but the underlying product is weak.
At what college in the world would a frat guy, two nerds, and a lesbian be best friends? Exactly.
Without the bodies to look at, this is a snoozefest”
I’m not saying Russ and Mike (above) are the same guy, but, I don’t know, maybe they’re the same guy….
And the fact of the matter is no, if the characters didn’t take their clothes off, nobody would go see it, because a play requires an “event” to exist, and this play’s event happens to be a naked party.
Lastly, your comment about the nerds, frat guy, and lesbian being friends just confuses me. I would argue that Troy is not a frat guy (I’ve known many non-fraternal people like him), and Jordan was not a lesbian. But whatever, even so, why can’t these people be friends again? I have to say, of all the things you might get down on this play about, why is that one of them?
10:05 am
Becuase they’re not believeable! The frat guy had a big celtic cross tat, a Maryland baseball cap, and talked all about getting pussy. If it looks like a duck . . . The lesbian made a joke about having to go into the closet to change, and she dressed like a dude. If it walks like a duck . . .
You know as well as I do that in college, people don’t mix like that. It’s not believable. And the whole play is based on this false interaction. Plus, the melodrama is boring like a script rejected from the CW. And I saw the Russ comments last week; I happen to agree with them, too!
10:30 am
Ok, I do think there are flaws in this show, and that elements of it do not ring true. However, the whole play is certainly not based on that interaction, and I’m sorry, but I guess don’t know as well as you do that people don’t mix like that in college. I had friends of all shapes, sizes, and tattoo types.
10:39 am
Were you in a frat?
10:43 am
Nope.
10:44 am
My point exactly.
10:48 am
Actually, I thought this was exactly your point: “You know as well as I do that in college, people don’t mix like that.” And that seems to have been disproven, so enough said on this matter.
10:53 am
But it hasn’t been disproven, dude. When I was in DTD, we weren’t hanging out with sensitive artist types. And I guarantee you, you did not have any friends who went to a party with chicks and said, “yeah, I can smell the pussy in here.”
That’s my world, son.
Also, I’m surprised you missed the lesbianism of the Jordan character. She has a boyfriend she’s lost interest in and who she’s hiding herself from, she makes the reference to how fitting it is that she’s changing “in a closet,” she dressed like a dude, her nips are pierced.
11:12 am
I agree that this was an unlikely mix to be college friends. Even more so, what guy who’s had sex only one time in college, a year or more ago, goes to a naked party? That’s just not believable. I’ve never been to a naked party, but my guess is that people who go to naked parties are pretty, uh, experienced.
11:14 am
“That’s my world, son.”
Pretty bad-ass. Isn’t that the welcome to Alcatraz line?
And doesn’t the fact that this totally fratted-out smugster is obsessively commenting on a theater blog prove the whole “oil & water don’t mix” hypothesis wrong?
11:23 am
So as the writer of the piece, I fully encourage commentary and criticism, even if I don’t always agree, because I’d like the work to be as strong as possible and the only way to get it there is to be absolutely open to feedback. With that said, there is a clarification that I feel needs to be made -
I appreciate your interpretation, but Troy was not written or played to be a frat guy, and Jordan was especially not written or played to be a Lesbian. If they were, hey, I think that’s cool too, just not the story we were trying to tell. There are many girls who dress and act unconventionally with absolutely no reflection on their sexual orientation or identity. Especially given that her relationship with her boyfriend is the crux of her personal arc.
In addition, I belong to absolutely no frat – yet two of my best friends do, including my roommate of two years. Over the last two years my housemates have included a frat guy who dropped out and started working full time at a bank, his girlfriend a former art major and general manager of a student radio station, a professional trucker, an absolute metal head, a sarcastic bostonian lighting designer, a preacher’s daughter, a kid who plays pokemon all day, an engineer working at Nasa, and me (I’ll take sensitive arts type, sure). All of us the same age, all of us good friends, none of us with the same interests (save possibly a general appreciation of music). And those are just the people who actually lived here, let alone everyone who comes to visit.
Perhaps this genuinely isn’t your world – but the inability to accept that some people – even outside of the parameters of this play – can be close friends with people different from them speaks more to your worldview than the actual world, as does your immediate need to stereotype background or sexual orientation based on a tattoo, hat, or piercing.
Now not liking the play for pretty much any other reason? That’s totally cool.
11:26 am
Ok, here is my qualm with this whole discussion, whether or not we agree on how believable the scenario in this play may be: SINCE WHEN IS THEATER OBLIGATED TO BE BELIEVABLE?
Theater is a game of “what if,” a flight of fancy, a turn of the imagination. In fact, I prefer theater to be unbelievable. That’s the whole point. Jason Schlafstien (the playwright-director) had a question on his mind. “What if, just what if these characters were in a room together, naked? What would happen?” The Naked Party, to varying degrees of dramatic success, deigns to find out the answer.
(Also, as I say in the article, I’ve been to more naked parties than I can count, and they are not overly sexualized events, so whether someone has had sex one time or 10^10 times has very little bearing on attendance.)
11:31 am
Mr. Schlafstein speaks! (And to great effect.)
Thank you sir, for weighing in on this one.
11:33 am
yes, how is it that no one has yet commented on brian’s surprising pension for naked parties? did yall READ that NY Times article? i would like to take a quick poll–who thinks that brian should help organize a fringe naked party?
11:40 am
I’m all for that. As long as generous pensions are provided for all comers….
11:44 am
When’s the Baldacchino being dismantled? I think that’s the prime venue…
12:24 pm
I may or may not have been to a naked party or thirty, but let me tell you: Until I got laid like a hundred times there was no way I would be able to go to a naked party without getting erect and ejaculating all over my leg. How embarrassing!
But this one time, I was chilling with my bros in my frat, son, and we were playing a siiiiick game of pong and dude you would never believe how many cups I hit in a row. Unbelieeeeevable night, dude. Anyway, so these chicks came over and all of us bros found excuses to take our shirts off and yell a bunch and high five about our beer pong achievements, but like, the chicks were totally not impressed so we realized that they were lesbians. But we put a bunch of GHB in their PBR and then we got them all to take off their clothes, which turned it into a naked party, and we were like, maybe these chicks aren’t lesbians, so we took off our clothes too and then took turns sexually assaulting them. Dude it AWESOME, son!
1:04 pm
Guess you guys like going to naked parties to look at the sacks.
1:16 pm
Is he referring to Oliver Sacks?
1:27 pm
No, I think he’s referring to Yonason Sacks.
1:39 pm
I went to the play because I wanted to see the girls take their clothes off. (Sit on the left side of the audience by the middle aisle for the best views).
Funny to see people pretend that this was art. The dialogue was just some whiny claptrap to tune out while scoping out the vag.
Who doesn’t love amateur pussy?
1:49 pm
Um, Mike may be a bit . . . rough around the edges (?) . .. but I kinda think he might be right. I mean, I saw it, and if the actors kept their clothes on, nobody would be seeing this play because it’s kinda boring.
Tho, I think I’m one of the people who Mike said “saw it because they appreciate the sack.” Touche. I think that might explain all the middle-aged men at the performance I saw, too
1:53 pm
Mike.
I believe you have now succeeded in trivializing any credibility you ever had as a critic by admitting, and resorting to the pathetic declaration of, your petulant sleaziness.
Congrats.
1:56 pm
Val, how dare you criticize me for being a sexual being! Yes, I like to look at naked women. If you grew up in America, you probably do, too, regardless of your orientation.
But for you to say that because I enjoy watching average girls take their clothes off means I cannot understand when a play has poor character development, trite plot lines and tinny dialogue is a cheap, prejudiced world view.
I hope in time you’re able to shed your prudish, repressed past and have a greater understanding of people unlike yourself.
2:49 pm
Did you honestly find The Naked Party to be a sexually charged experience?
4:17 pm
NB: The moderators have removed a comment of Mike’s in which he refers jeeringly to a “tasty” piece of the female anatomy.
The moderators would like to add that similarly ludicrous attempts at dragging the F&P readership down to the commenter’s level will be met with a similar response.
This is a forum for lively reactions and witty, even withering, repartée. But not for mindless effrontery and obscene drivel.
That is all.
5:05 pm
Not jeeringly, it was appreciative. And in answer to Brian, yes I did. From the audience’s reaction, I wasn’t the only one.
7:18 pm
I’d just like to let it be known that sexually inexperienced people have (and do) in fact go to naked parties. I went to three while I was at Yale. On my first occasion I was still a virgin, and pretty self-conscious about it. The virginity, not the party. Ok, maybe a little bit about the party too. I, like Brian, also find naked parties to be surprisingly non-sexual for most of the attendees. I also noticed that people seemed to be making more eye contact at naked parties than at garden-variety gatherings. Ultimately, though, the party didn’t skeeve me out, turn me on, or make me ejaculate all over my leg. It mostly just left me with an even clearer picture than I usually get at parties of how little most of the people in the room had to say to each other.
8:56 pm
While I don’t agree with the use of Mike’s extremely course language, I do believe he has a point about the fact that these people would choose to be friends. While it was short-sighted at the time, I generally hung out (after freshman year) with the people that were in my group (and in my sorority/fraternity circle). I don’t think that this was the way to go, but at the time, I had blinders on.
Anyway, I haven’t seen this show–but now, maybe I should!
1:11 am
Mike, I sincerely doubt that the actors appreciate being objectified against their will while they are trying to put on a show that has a message that is worth hearing. Whether or not you are mature enough to appreciate the message of The Naked Party is up to you and you alone, but any self respecting human being would appalled at the way you have treated the actors of this show. Just because you are so insecure in your masculinity that you have to resort to boasting in comments on a critical review of a play, doesn’t mean you have to bring everyone in the cast down with you by turning them into sex objects. Anyone with a half a brain can see that this show took a lot of guts to put up and the least that we, as an audience, can do for the hard work that the actors have done in order to entertain us is to treat them like human beings. You want to make them into sex objects? then you go stand in front a crowd of people naked and let them be “appreciative” of your unimpressiveness. If you have constructive criticism that is fine. If not, keep your filth to yourself.
As for The Naked Party, despite what some have said here, the nudity is not the reason this show is good. The reason this show is good is because it is an exploration of honesty and vulnerability and the nudity adds a level to the play that is that make or break it aspect, and in this case it makes it. The audience should enjoy a deep look into emotional nakedness and what it means to be honest with ourselves and with each other.
1:43 am
As an actress in this show, I would just like to say, thank you, Maple. I really appreciate everything you said. I auditioned for this play because I really do care about its content. I didn’t sign up for this to be rated as a sex object, but if you’re going to view me that way, then the least you could do is not post it in public places where I can read about it. Can you imagine what that feels like? I still have three shows left to perform. Please, just think about it from my point of view.
10:46 am
So “Russ/Mike” has been outed as a comment canvasser AND a vulgar lech, and has confessed that he couldn’t bring himself to venture outside the circle of friends that his frat prescribed for him.
My God, “The Naked Party” even leaves the souls of its CRITICS bare! Mr. Schlafstein, you know not the power your script wields.
1:45 pm
Dear Mike,
For all the hard work your doing trying to bring this show down by being an ‘internet tough guy’ (and an especially vulgar one), I can only say this to you:
Thanks for your $15. I’ll spend it well.
The Producer
P.S. ‘No one would go see this show if the actors kept their clothes on’. The nudity, both metaphorically and physically, is what the show’s about. Isn’t this comment a little like saying ‘no one would see Rent if it didn’t have the songs’.
2:32 pm
You guys are really weird. Your definition of sexual objectification is straight (pun intended) second-wave feminism. What’s vulgar about being honest about the joys of nudity? I thought dudes like you are not supposed to be repressed like us breeders?
And producer man, enjoy my 15 dollars–less the amount you share with fringe, use to cover costs/expenses, and split with the actors. It’s cheaper than Camelot! Plus, real amateurs! Nice.
2:55 pm
“Dudes like us???” What’s THAT supposed to mean??
Ima bout to SLAP dis ho!
2:59 pm
not worth it, Glitter.
mike, what mean “us,” duder? i bet me dont get to breed much.
3:00 pm
by me, i say you
3:02 pm
[good puppet]: nice one, d
[bad puppet]: neither of you get to breed much
[good puppet]: but your dead, you have an excuse
3:10 pm
Baubles wonders if this comment string has a chance to reach 100 by Friday.
Favorite words in this string so far:
claptrap
siiiiick
nips
Schlafstein
smugster
lech
effrontery
sack
But where’z the party at? We should all get nekkid together and watch Mortal Kombat.
Woo-hah! I’mma find Mike and buy him a Zima.
3:28 pm
Come on people, lay off! He said he didn’t like your play now leave him alone! And OMG, is there really, like, nudity in your play? You take your clothes off on stage and it’s fair game for people the say whatevs about it; don’t get on your high horse and pretend like it’s sacred art. It gets attention, but the basic play has to be strong enough to stand up even without the gimmick. And ya know what? It’s not.
4:13 pm
F[Bleep] RIGHT! I F[Bleep]-ING HATE F[Bleep]-ING PLAYS THAT HAVE TO RIDE ON A F[Bleep]-ING GIMMICK!!!
1:11 pm
I weep for the English language.
5:37 pm
i thought the show funny but also provided the thoughts of us who do not normally frequent naked partiesl. The anxieties were there and usually are present in such circumstances. I applaud the actors who were courageous enough to expose themselves to the world.
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