Take a moment if you would and think to yourself about pop culture references that are being thrown around right now. For example, if someone messes up, slaps their forehead and says, “Doh!” everyone gets the reference. People know it even if they’ve never seen an episode of The Simpsons. It’s a phrase that may end up transcending its source material for generations, unlike other popular phrases from the same show like “Worst ______ ever” or Nelson’s mocking laugh.

Generally though, a pop culture reference is the victim of its time. Thirty years ago, if you mentioned the play Oh! Calcutta!, chances are everyone would know what you were talking about. Its notoriety was due in large part to its controversy. It was the first play of its kind, focusing entirely on sexual themes and featuring its cast mostly nude. It was, compared to the standards of the day, very dirty and therefore incredibly exciting. It’s this notoriety that got it mentioned as a pop culture reference in an episode of The Simpsons, and while I laughed at the phrase when Apu uttered it, I had never seen the actual play.

I figured I was in the minority on this and that most people had at least seen a DVD release of it. When I received this DVD for review, I started casually mentioning it to friends. I was shocked to find that none of my friends had ever seen it. In fact, a few had never even heard of it!  The most notorious play of the 1970s seemed to have lost all its bite in a short 36 years.

“How could this be?” I thought. Then I watched it.

Man, has this thing suffered. Coming when it did, at the height of the sexual revolution, the play spoke openly and freely about alternative lifestyles, took the mystery and danger out of words that formerly were never uttered in public and featured nudity on a scale unparalleled. However, that revolution halted abruptly when the world was confronted with the AIDS epidemic. No more free love and swingers parties for everyone. Now you had to worry about dying. While studies show that we as a society start having sex at an earlier age and with more partners than generations past, that specter of AIDS has cast a long shadow over the proceedings. That’s why watching Oh! Calcutta! in 2006 is not as much fun on a subject matter scale and instead lends itself more to giving insight into the culture of the time.

The play started off-Broadway at the end of the 1960s and ran for 1600 performances in the US; even more in the UK. It was revived on Broadway in the late 1970s and ran for 13 years. Oh! Calcutta! consists of ten short “scenes” book ended by an opening and closing song performed by the nude cast. The scenes were written by people like John Lennon, Samuel Beckett and Sam Shepard. They range from the comic (“Will Answer All Serious Replies” features a young couple trying to swing for the first time and getting an older couple they’re not comfortable with at all) to the artistically serious (“Jack and Jill” seeks to make a statement about how women and men are raised to view sex and ends with a rape). Some have elaborate set pieces, and others are shot with just the actors on spotlighted stools with the stage otherwise dark.

While all of the pieces have some merit, some fare better than others. The aforementioned “Will Answer All Serious Replies” is pretty funny even now, where “A Suite of Five Letters” doesn’t come across so well. There are some interpretive dance sections that I just had to laugh at… I mean come on… interpretive dance? AIDS aside, though, there is another issue that hurts Oh! Calcutta! The fact that the very doors it sought to unlock have been unlocked for over 30 years tends to make much of the humor here seem old hat to people who have seen these themes mined for laughs repeatedly. “Four in Hand”, about a guy at a masturbation party having trouble finding things that arouse him, might have been funny and dangerous back in the day, but this is the kind of thing that was ripped off on adult comedy cable shows throughout the 1980s.

For that reason, I can’t really suggest you seek this out unless you are just curious about the time period. It just doesn’t hit as hard as it probably used to.

Presentation
This lacks big time. It really can’t be helped, though. This was filmed for a closed circuit television broadcast which aired in the early 1970s. The picture brings new meaning to the words “soft focus”. There are blurred edges everywhere. The audio fares surprisingly better, though, and is bright and clear.

Extras
The only extra on this is a 1971 Playbill reproduction and the cast and crew biographies. Neither are really worth checking out beyond simple curiosity.

The Bottom Line
Oh! Calcutta! is definitely a product of its time. While I firmly believe having this disc around so that people can view it if they want to is a great thing, I can’t recommend you actually pick this disc up and view it casually. In short, I’m glad I saw it, however I will probably never watch it again.