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1 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Pot store threatens bank loan ... Mail Tribune 100, Jan. 3, 1916 ... Armed protesters occupy Malheur wildlife refuge building ... Pot store threatens bank loan ... Mail Tribune 100, Jan. 3, 1916 ... Armed protesters occupy Malheur wildlife refuge building ... Most Shakespeare festival watchers get past the nudity By Bill Varble MailTribune.com By Bill Varble Posted Jun. 4, 2000 at 2:00 AM Updated Dec 17, 2010 at 5:00 AM By Bill Varble Posted Jun. 4, 2000 at 2:00 AM Updated Dec 17, 2010 at 5:00 AM » Social News No complaints yet about — plays that bare all She had just seen Wit, Margaret Edson's play about a middle-aged English professor dying of ovarian cancer, and she was clearly having a problem with it. The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is playing in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's intimate Black Swan Theater in Ashland through June 24. The woman seemed moved by the play, but she questioned its final moment. In the end, cancer has stripped away the intellectual armor of central character Vivian Bearing and finally taken her life. The stage fades to black. Then the lights flash up for one galvanizing second, and we see Bearing rising naked from the deathbed, fist aloft like Winged Victory. Critics and audiences have seen in the fleeting image a metaphor for Bearing's indomitable spirit, her release from suffering, her essential innocence. But the scene requires actress Linda Alper to get naked, and the nudity troubled the theatergoer. Wit is one of three plays in the OSF's 11-play season containing nudity. The others are Diana Son's Stop Kiss, which opens in previews July 4, and Euripides? The Trojan Women (July 26). The festival's brochures include the warning contains nudity, and OSF box office staffers mention the fact to ticket buyers. A Shakespeare spokeswoman says the festival hasn't had any complaints. I hardly noticed it, avid theatergoer Nan Trout of Ashland says of the scene. It did not offend me. Why should it have? I didn't find it exhibitionist. It was part of the Christian tradition of the spirit leaving the body. Loretta Greco overheard the woman questioning the nude scene and had to control herself. I wanted to say, ?Can't you see that's the only truthful moment, the bravest moment of the play?? — she says. She's been hiding behind all that intellectual stuff, all that wit. It's a release. Greco is in town to direct Diana Son's Stop Kiss, another play with nudity. Son is a playwright-in-residence at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. When the 39-year-old Greco got a call from OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel to do the play, she got excited. It was a play I felt strongly about, she says. Stop Kiss is a coming-of-age story about two young women in New York City. Callie has lived her life never having had to make a real choice. Sara knows who she is and has come to New York to spread her wings. It's tricky, delicate, Greco says. They connect. Sara knows there's something bigger in Callie. It's an incredible friendship. It grows from friendship to falling in love — but they don't become lovers. The arc of the play traces two journeys. The first is Callie's choice, which leads to the kiss of the title. I don't think either has thought of what women do sexually, Greco says. They go to a gay bar and can't put themselves in that context. Their kiss is the purity of that moment — they bump noses! — but a creep thinks he's found two kinky girls. The story's second journey bounces back and forth in time. The kiss has led to a horrific act of violence. Sara is in the hospital fighting for her life. The nude scene comes when Callie dresses Sara in a hospital gown. It's not full nudity. It lasts seven minutes. Greco says it's an emblem of respect for Callie. It's the first time she's seen Sara's body, Greco says. We see her breasts, what you wear under your hospital gown. Callie is saying, ?I can do this. If you need somebody to dress you, I can take care of you.? She puts on her blouse. There's nothing sexual. Greco works off Broadway and at the New York Theater Workshop and is a member of New Dramatists. She has a master of fine arts degree from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Stop Kiss is her first play for the festival. She says theater doesn't have the technical tool box the movies do, whether the nudity is metaphorical, as in Wit, or literal, as in Stop Kiss. In Wit, for example, the director's problem is how to show a moment of transcendence that a film director might represent with a montage of clouds and swelling music. How do you show that? she says. She (Bearing) leaves with what she came in with. It's a huge moment. I don't know if Margaret (Edson) wrote it that way. I worry people think the theater is a big TV monitor. She says Stop Kiss is ultimately about two human beings finding each other and making each other better people. People will have moments of recognition, she says. The play acknowledges that audience members are smart and want to be active. By Bill Varble MailTribune.com By Bill Varble Posted Jun. 4, 2000 at 2:00 AM Updated Dec 17, 2010 at 5:00 AM » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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