NAU Theatre is Raunchy These Days

Dear Readers,

So I just took a peek at Northern Arizona University’s 2010-2011 Theatre Season.

They’re doing Equus. It’s a morally bad play that’s got major nudity in it. Maybe I should write a letter to the editor complaining about it.

They’re also doing The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. I’ve never heard of that play before, but here’s the promotional blurb about it:

In a hilarious dissection of history’s most legendary betrayal, Pontius Pilate, Mother Teresa, and Sigmund Freud are called to testify in a trial of Judas Iscariot. Mixing the urban vernacular with the holy and divine, arguments fill the courtroom over where Judas should reside–heaven or hell, and who is truly to blame– he or God.

My guess is that the play is going to be very sacrilegious. Religion will be mocked, and godless liberals in the audience will laugh.

Man, what’s with Mac Groves, Robert Yowell, and other liberal theatre professors wanting their students to get naked on stage?

I remember when I was in the Grapes of Wrath at NAU in the Spring of 2008. During the final scene of that play, Rose-of-Sharon Joad was supposed to breastfeed a starving stranger. The director, Dr. Robert Yowell, wanted her to actually expose her breast to the audience. It would be more powerful, Yowell figured.

I was nervous to be in a play that had nudity in it. (I was also nervous about being in a play where I had to repeatedly take the Lord’s name in vain, but that’s another story.) Thankfully, even though the actress playing Rose-of-Sharon was a left-leaning vegetarian, she had enough decency to ask the director if she could please keep herself covered. The director relented, and it was decided to have Rose-of-Sharon cover herself up with a blanket while she pretended to breastfeed. Thank goodness.

Also in Grapes of Wrath, for set decoration, Robert Yowell had a giant naked lady painted on the backdrop. It was supposed to be “artistic.” I remember Yowell saying that the giant naked lady represented the lushness and promise of California.

Whatever.

Looking back, the whole play was a bunch of amoral communist propaganda.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa