Brecht on Breast

STIPIMM: “Eight Days a Week,” by the Beatles

It is difficult for me to find a proper balance between art and sex. That is the very enlightened conclusion that I have reached after twice watching “Brecht on Brecht,” directed by Judy Braha, and assistant directed by my dear Bridget.

“Wow, an interesting revelation!” you may say. “The play must be quite dense with examinations on sexuality and the nature of art!” No such thing; if anything, the content of the play that deals with sex is rather pedestrian. No, I came to my hypothesis after having trouble concentrating for two hours while nine nubile young women, most of them clad in tight pants and delectable tops, danced, slinked around on the floor, and showed off their natural wonders. Sure, they were spouting off Bertolt Brecht’s poetry and dialogue, and I’m sure it had some important point or made sense on some level, but it’s hard to care when a gorgeous woman is crawling across the floor, her ass calling up to you like a baboon. Excellent staging? Sure, I guess. Insomuch as it called for one nymphette to rest on all-fours in a hungry, come-fuck-me, doggy-style position for, oh, about five minutes. Choreography? Superb, especially when all the young women were called upon to simultaneously lie on their backs, open their legs wide, and moan orgasmically. Costume design? Whoever decided that my favorite gal in the bunch should wear a top that made the nipples on her perky little breasts perpetually hard should get an award.

Yes, I’m a dirty old man at the ripe age of 31. Have pity on me; I have to endure these tortures for the love of Bridget, who, for all her beauty and talents, refuses to get up on scaffolding and sing and writhe around for me. The actresses in “Brecht on Brecht” did that in spades.

The winner of the Best Ass contest leads the runners-up in a dance

Fortunately, Bridget makes up for this torture by playing along with me. Knowing that I’m an ass man, she challenged me, on my first viewing of the play, to determine who in the cast had the best behind. It was a tough contest, with a lot of fierce competition. But in the end (ha!), there was one clear winner (oh, shove off--like you’d even know the name if I told you; look at her pic instead). After the show, when Bridget and I caught the bus to go back home, three of the actresses from the show got on and sat with us. Bridget, discreet as ever, announced that she had tasked me with finding the best ass in the cast, and naturally, the girls wanted to know my decision. Now, none of the three actresses were my winner, but two of them were strong finalists. And I certainly didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the third gal (who probably only didn’t fare well in the contest because she was wearing a skirt), so I demurred and gave some noncommittal answer.

Here they were, Bridget giving me permission to physically evaluate these women, and those women earnestly wanting to know the results of my evaluation, and what do I do? I crumble. A chance to show my kooky sexual side, and I wither and hide. Bridget’s seen this happen to me many times in the time she’s exposed me to the zany theatre world. I suppose I’m the kind of dirty old man who is more used to being private with his dirtiness (that sounds foul…). Actually, the roots of it go deeper than that; since adolescence, I have operated under the assumption (picked up from seeing women of all ages kvetch about men) that women would rather have men be clean, faithful and modest, and that they perceive any man with an outwardly visible sex drive as something to be feared and reviled.

Like I said up front, it’s a public sexual balance that has been off-kilter for me for some time. One of the things I love about Bridget is that she embraces it and stands right with me as I blush my way through whatever cums our way. She’s told me that she too has quite a bit of problem concentrating on the goings-on in “Brecht on Brecht” at times. For god’s sake, it was her idea for the ass contest (or at least her idea to bring it up from the recesses of my filthy mind). I always feel it’s easier for her, because girls can be that way and get away with it; and those theatre college girls, they dig that whole bi thing. But god bless Bridget for her patience with my bumbling, fumbling sexual persona; she’ll turn me into a Leisure Suit Larry in no time.

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I’ll talk about the artistic aspects of the production shortly (yes, I was lucid enough to evaluate them, at least the second time). But first, in tomorrow's post, I have to tell you what I did in NYC yesterday!...