Oh, Calcutta! (play)
**Overview of "Oh, Calcutta!" (play)**
"Oh, Calcutta!" is an avant-garde theatrical production that premiered Off-Broadway on June 17, 1969. Created by Kenneth Tynan, the play consists of thirteen sketches performed by a cast of five men and five women, with a strong emphasis on sexual themes and often featuring full nudity. The sketches, which are a mix of comedy and musical elements, explore the complexities of human sexuality, often through the lens of dysfunctional relationships. Some notable contributors to the sketches include renowned figures like Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, and Sam Shepard.
The play gained mixed critical reception but achieved significant commercial success, culminating in a lengthy run both Off-Broadway and on Broadway. Its impact was profound, as it celebrated the sexual liberation of the 1960s while also sparking discussions regarding censorship and societal norms surrounding nudity and sexuality in theater. The production is often remembered for providing a provocative entertainment experience, allowing audiences to engage with themes of eroticism without the stigma associated with more explicit adult venues of the time. "Oh, Calcutta!" stands as a landmark in theatrical history, reflecting shifting attitudes towards sexuality and performance art.
Oh, Calcutta! (play)
Produced 1969
Author Kenneth Tynan
The Broadway play that best reflects the sexual revolution of the 1960’s. It is comical, musical, and both a celebration and a satire of the sexual preoccupations of the era.
Key Figures
Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980), author
The Work
In Oh, Calcutta!: An Entertainment with Music, five men and five women act out thirteen comic and musical sketches that often include dance, invariably focus on sexual issues, and usually involve disrobing to total nudity. Kenneth Tynan collected or recruited the sketches from figures as famous and diverse as Samuel Beckett, Jules Feiffer, John Lennon, and Sam Shepard. Many of the sketches involve dysfunctional lovers. For example, “Dick and Jane” takes place in a darkened bedroom where the man and woman give each other instructions on how to make love more effectively, but neither is satisfied by the coaching. Finally, Dick suggests acting out a sexual fantasy that involves a mask, a whip, high-heeled boots, a basketball, a bicycle, a watermelon, paint, balloons, a tub, a department-store mannikin, a light show with deafening rock music, and an umbrella. When the cacophony of his fantasy ends, his pleasure is exquisite, but Jane has disappeared. Similarly, the humor of many of the sketches celebrates sexual freedom while at the same time satirizing sexual excesses.
Impact
Oh, Calcutta! premiered Off-Broadway on June 17, 1969, at the Eden Theater. The critical reception was mixed, but the show’s phenomenal commercial appeal carried it to a notorious success, running for 704 performances at the Eden before transferring to Broadway’s Belasco Theater for 610 additional performances. Revived in 1976 at the Edison Theater, it ran for nearly 6,000 more performances, closing in 1989 as the second longest running musical in Broadway history. The play was successful partly because of its entertainment value and partly for its slightly salacious nature; some theater-goers got “peep show” thrills without enduring the social stigma of loitering near the sleazy pornography houses of Forty-Second Street, and at a certain point late in its Edison Theater run, the show was notorious for catering to out-of-town businessmen looking for a night of fun in New York City. The production celebrated the new-found sexual freedom of the 1960’s and opened the way for a more relaxed attitude toward nudity on the public stage while stimulating nationwide debate on censorship, morality, and taste in the theater.
Related Work
Human Sexual Response (1966), by William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, was a widely read and very influential book that described in detail the body’s response to erotic stimulation and helped to make open discussion of sex more acceptable.
Additional Information
For a detailed portrait of eroticism on stage in two contrasting periods 1890 to 1910 and 1950 to 1972 along with a sophisticated analysis of changing social attitudes toward such eroticism, read Erotic Theater (1974), by John Elsom.