Snowman Play

[Robert Brooks]

Snowman Play

This was one memorable scene I particularly enjoyed at a theatre adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman I saw in London in 2002, shortly before Christmas.

For anyone unfamiliar with this much loved animated classic, here’s a link to its entry on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snowman
The basic gist is a young boy makes a snowman in his back garden who magically comes to life.

I was twelve at the time, roughly the same age as the young actor who played the boy; roughly the same age also as the group of five or six girls sitting two rows from the front, seemingly without adult supervision. Based on how much they cheered when he made his yawning appearance on stage and how loudly they giggled during this particular scene, I got the feeling they all may have gone to the same school as the boy, but of course I have no way to say for sure. That would be my guess anyway. I know if it had been me on stage in front of a bunch of girls from my school, I would have been embarrassed beyond belief.

The Snowman film begins with the boy waking up and looking excitedly out of his window at the fresh snow, before frantically dressing (so hastily he forgets to put on underpants), and dashing out into his garden where he spends the entire day making his remarkably life-size snowman.

Well, this being a play with real people and not a hand drawn, smudgy animation, there was of course no way the actor boy would bare his buttocks or indeed anything else during this opening dressing scene, but I was amused and more than a little excited to see him really change his stripy pyjama bottoms for jeans behind the privacy of his near full-length dressing gown, his back turned strategically to the audience. I didn’t see him put on underpants so I assume he had them on all along.
The scene that followed at the end of the snowman building sequence, however, was played out a little differently.

Bed time… The boy’s bedroom set is pushed on stage around him as the lights fade from daytime to evening and in walks his mother, carrying his blue and white stripy pyjamas draped over her arm.

It all happened so quickly and so suddenly I could barely register what I was seeing right there under the spotlight before it was over. This time, without the screen of the boy’s dressing gown — for he simply changed clothes and was promptly tucked into bed — the mother reached out, took hold of his shirt and jumper and lifted up, pulling them both right off with the boy raising his arms up cooperatively. The next second, now bare-chested, the boy undid his own jeans and to audible giggling from the group of girls (and my own astonishment, not to mention extreme titillation), dropped them to his ankles, exposing himself from head to toe in nothing but a pair of skimpy, gleaming white briefs (gleaming impossibly white under the bright theatre lights).

I could scarcely believe what I was seeing in a theatre in the 21st century, but I was certainly not complaining. Neither were the girls! Putting aside the context and construct of the play, we had effectively just witnessed a boy strip right down to his underpants in public before rapidly stepping into the pyjama bottoms held out for him by the mother and jumping quickly into bed, pulling on his pyjama top as he went. I’m sure in front of those girls, potentially even his classmates, he couldn’t get into bed fast enough that night!

Soon after I became awkwardly aware I was now completely stiff and straining at the confines of my own briefs and remained so for much of the rest of the play. It really didn’t help that at several other times I was able to just about notice the boy’s underwear showing ever so faintly through his pyjamas! I knew from first hand experience that briefs in 2002, particularly white briefs, were near enough the most embarrassing underpants for a boy of twelve to be seen in, acting in a play or not. Hell, I bet they still are today!

[Freesub]

I'm certain white briefs will always remain the most embarassing underwear for a boy to be caught in!
I remember dropping them from my wardrobe entirely after being accidentally caught in just white briefs by a female cousin and being teased mercilessly about the visible outline of my privates. All briefs were dark coloured after that day!

[TeenFan]

The only example i could find of an actor doing full frontal nudity, under the age of 18, is when Daniel Radcliffe starred in "Equus".
I did a short online search, but found no other references to underage actors in a stage play. There must have been some such
performances, but any such records have been perhaps wiped out by the international morality police.

Young actors doing naked scenes in movies has also nearly completely vanished. Used to be very common from the 1970s through the 90s
in European films. A few examples in US movies can be found, such as "Angela" filmed in 1995.

[Jozinmynantz]

I'm not sure on stage plays, but I know underage actors have been naked in film a number of times. rtgallery in particular has quite a few of them, even as recently as Ava in 2017, which starred a 17-year-old.

[tim409]

Maybe fewer young actors are getting nude but many more male actors are doing so as fewer female actors get nude so it seems like nudity on stage or on film is becoming more and more CFNM.

My wife and I went to a local theater production performed in an old church converted into a dinner theater and although families with young children were present with one family with a boy around 12 and two girls who must have been between 8 and 10, a male actor stripped naked after about 5 minutes of the play and remained naked for most of the two hour performance.

The boy was notably embarassed and when the girls started to giggle, the mom told them to be quite and enjoy the show. One of the girls said oh yea we are enjoying it.

I think the show went on for a couple of weeks and after the first couple of performances it was always sold out mostly with families most with more girls than boys. I would love to see a lot more performances just like this.

[Robert Brooks]

Oh my God, Tim, that’s nuts!
Wow. And I thought stripping to tighty-whities was bad enough for a young boy to be seen by girls his age!!

How old was the actor would you say?
And why did he have to stay naked for most of the play?? What’s the context?

[Jeepman89]

The name of the play please?

[tim409]

I do not remember the name of that play but I do remember a play titled "Bent" and it only had one cast member, and that cast member was a male and he was totally naked the whole play often within a couple of feet from those in the first row. I am not sure how he kept from getting an erection being naked in front of a lot of women for over 1 1/2 hours.

[tim409]

BTW, I do love that only males are naked and that a lot of women do attend these type plays, often with their children with them

[Robert Brooks]

The boy was notably embarassed and when the girls started to giggle, the mom told them to be quite and enjoy the show. One of the girls said oh yea we are enjoying it.

How old was the boy actor? Are we talking teens or younger?