Can nudity be morally incorporated into theater?

[Speaker4theDead]

My girlfriend is in a professional production of Dante’s Inferno, and she has been asked to go topless for the 9th circle, which is about the sin of abusing sex. She is Catholic and is morally conflicted about whether this is right or wrong. The point of the piece is to show how it is evil and goes on to be about the consequences of abusing this gift, and it’s very tasteful and artistic.

However, it’s not modest, and not “her” at all, and I guess in a selfish way it totally bothers me that she would be exposed like that in front of so many people night after night and week after week. She wants my advice as a Catholic, but since I am also her boyfriend, I have trouble looking at this objectively. As an artist, I can see how it could be a worthy, important part to play, and how it could be permissible; but as her boyfriend, I just can’t keep an objective perspective on this. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Nudity can, at times, be depicted in theater. Schindler’s List, for example, depicted the total humiliation of the victims of the Holocaust when they were stripped before entering the gas chambers. In The Mission, the nudity reflected the cultural norms of the indigenous people. In a play that is trying to depict the moral evil of the abuse of sex though, it seems a bad idea to risk titillating the audience with a topless dancer. In any case, a dancer uncomfortable with going topless should not be forced or coerced into doing so.

Suggest that your girlfriend speak to the costume designer and director about an alternative costume. One idea she could float would be to fashion a costume based on Hester Prynne, the adulteress of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter. Even if that particular idea doesn’t work out, it might inspire other modest ideas that will work.