Word: calcuttas
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...Cover: a three-dimensional illustration by Dennis Wheeler. The work is a fig leaf with a zipper, revealing two cast members of Oh! Calcutta!, the latest and most explicit example of theater in the nude. To Wheeler, the three elements-the leaf of Eden, the ubiquitous modern mechanism, the stark young bodies -symbolize the erotic renaissance that is the subject of TIME'S story...
...CALCUTTA! is, for a good part of the evening, diverting and civilized, though it scarcely provides the "elegant erotica" that Kenneth Tynan promised. If it gets a minus on eroticism, the show does get two solid plusses for the laughter it evokes and its celebration of the body beautiful...
...much word-of-mouth stimulation preceded opening night as to make the evening almost anticlimactic. The rumor was that Oh! Calcutta!, appropriately housed in an off-Broadway theater renamed Eden, would be a nude frontier in permissive theater. In an anticipatory dither, sophisticated and not so sophisticated New Yorkers rushed to the box office to make the show's 41 previews sellouts. They verified the rumor. Oh! Calcutta! is the nudest show outside a nudist camp. Though the top price on the scale is $7.50 for an orchestra seat, scalpers have collected $20 and more. On July...
...format of Oh! Calcutta! is rather like that of short short stories and cartoons strung together in the revue fashion of a supper-club show. Though the program does not say who wrote what, the playwrights include Samuel Beckett, Dan Greenburg, Jules Feiffer, John Lennon, Leonard Melfi, Sam Shepard, Tynan himself, and others. Their playlets will doubtless enhance their royalties if not their reputations...
...Calcutta! not only offers the most nudity but the handsomest nudes on the New York stage, trim-muscled men and lovely girls. Why does it fail to stimulate eroticism? The answer is that no member of a theater audience is unaware of the rest of the audience, and this communal group consciousness inhibits erotic response. If it gets a minus on eroticism, Oh! Calcutta! gets two plusses for the laughter it evokes and its rousing celebration of the body beautiful...