DVDs: Taking Off the Robe
Recently released on DVD is an authentic, original-cast document of one of the longest-running shows in Broadway history. No, it's not Cats, Les Miz, or The Phantom of the Opera. It's the one that never got any respect, Oh! Calcutta!
The show was conceived by no less than eminent critic Kenneth Tynan, who saw it as "a place for a civilized man to take a civilized woman to spend an evening of civilized erotic stimulation." What this ultimately meant was a production that ran on and off for twenty years largely because of its liberal doses of nudity. It's said that the show became a big attraction for Japanese and European tourists, many of whom had the benefit of not understanding the language and turned out simply for the skin.
Oh! Calcutta! was first an off-Broadway show; it opened in June, 1969 at the Eden Theatre and played there for about two years. In February, 1971, Oh! Calcutta! had its Broadway debut, at the Belasco Theatre, where it lasted eighteen months. What made the show a long-run statistic was its second Broadway engagement, at the Edison Theatre, where it played for thirteen years, from 1976 to 1989. Because of its occasional playing schedule of more than eight shows a week, Oh! Calcutta! was, at one time, actually ahead of the longest-running show, A Chorus Line, in number of performances. Of course, Cats came along and took care of Oh! Calcutta!'s claim to being the longest-running Broadway show, with The Phantom of the Opera looking set to break the Cats record.
Conceived and directed by Jacques Levy, who was responsible for a much better off-Broadway attraction called America Hurrah, Oh! Calcutta! was produced by Hillard Elkins Golden Boy, The Rothschilds and had music and lyrics written and performed by a group known as The Open Window, which consisted of Robert Dennis, Peter Schickele, and Stanley Walden.
Directed by Levy, the film version is for the most part a tape of the stage production, apparently made in 1972. I'm not sure that the movie ever had theatrical exhibition, and may have been shot for closed-circuit television, an early form of cable. From the original off-Broadway cast, the film features Raina Barrett, Mark Dempsey, Bill Macy, Margo Sappington, Nancy Tribush and George Welbes. From the original Broadway company come Samantha Harper, Patricia Hawkins, Mitchell Maguire, and Gary Rethmeier.
A couple of these performers were heard from again, most obviously Macy, who would begin playing Bea Arthur's husband, Walter, on the CBS-TV series Maude shortly after the Oh! Calcutta! film was made. Patricia Hawkins became Trish Hawkins, and was the lead in the Broadway play Talley's Folly. Sappington, who also choreographed Oh! Calcutta!, had already danced Michael Bennett's "Turkey Lurkey" number in Promises, Promises, in which she also understudied Jill O'Hara.
While some sources list the film at 100 minutes, it runs over 120 in Obsession's DVD, and every one of its sketches goes on too long. The DVD begins with a prologue that was obviously added for an early-'80s videocassette release; the marquee of the Edison Theatre is shown, and the show is described as being in its fourteenth year on Broadway. We see a sedate, rather grim-looking audience arrive at the Edison and take their seats. Intercut with this is backstage footage in which we watch the naked actors apply body makeup.
With the exception of one sequence, the rest of the film is the show, captured more or less as it appeared on stage. It begins with "Taking Off the Robe," a slow, ensemble striptease accompanied by the title song. That's followed by "Jack and Jill," a two-character sketch by Leonard Melfi in which a children's game turns erotic and nasty. Note: The show's authors were billed on the title page, but their names were not assigned to specific sketches, which have long gone unattributed. The author attributions I'm noting come from Sherman Yellen's notes for DRG's reissue of the Oh! Calcutta! cast album.
"Suite for Five Letters" is a musical number made up of letters to the editor ranging from London in 1939 to New York in 1969. In evening dress, five cast members sing and note the erotic possibilities of high heels, corsets, body piercings, etc. A bedroom chat for a couple, the sketch "Dick and Jane" follows.
"Will Answer All Sincere Replies" concerns a pair of swinging couples, and is the work of screenwriters Robert Benton and David Newman. Yellen The Rothschilds contributed the show's only moderately clever sketch, "Delicious Indignities," a bit of spoofy Victorian erotica. The first act ends with "Was It Good for You Too?," a slapstick, vaudeville-style sketch about a sex experiment, written by Dan Greenburg, and including the song "I Like the Look."
For the opening sequence of the second act, we shift from tape to film and get an outdoor scene, a forest with a lake, for "Much Too Soon," a nude pastoral ballet for the company. "One on One" is a lengthy, nude pas de deux performed by Margo Sappington and George Welbes, accompanied by the country-rock song "Clarence and Mildred."
In "Rock Garden," the work of Sam Shepard, a conversation between a father and son, on a porch and in rocking chairs, turns erotic. "Four in Hand" involves a male quartet and a "telepathic thought-transmitter" machine. It may be the work of John Lennon. Like the opening, the finale turns nude and involves the entire company and several songs.
Watching this DVD confirms that Oh! Calcutta! deserved the negative reviews it received and ran chiefly because of its abundant nudity. But if the material is strained or worse, this DVD ranks as a notable cultural artifact, returning one to a pre-AIDS period of sexual freedom and experimentation. While the return of A Chorus Line is promised for Broadway in 2006, I wouldn't look for another revival of Oh! Calcutta! So this DVD is likely to remain the only visual record of a theatrical phenomenon.