As headlines go, “A challenge for the arts: Stop sanitizing and show the great works as they were created” embodies what many of us were taught in school about the well-made essay: tell people what you’re going to tell them, offer support for your thesis, then tell them what you’ve told them. Unlike many instances where newspaper headlines misrepresent the content of the article that follows, I would say that Philip Kennicott’s article in The Washington Post on October 4^th was accurately summarized. As a result, the unsettled feeling I had upon reading it remained with me as I read the piece itself, and long afterwards.

To select two paragraphs which explicitly reinforce Kennicott’s thesis, I offer first:

Censoring art to make it more palatable to contemporary audiences warps our sense of goodness, making our tolerance seem magically delivered rather than hard-won through centuries of struggle. It erases the complex, chaotic history of tolerance, especially problematic at a moment in history when the West is given to lecturing the “rest” on new and culturally alien extensions of compassion and decency across gender, sexual and sectarian lines.

Later in the piece, Kennicott asserts:

To preserve their independence, the arts need to stand resolutely aside from the increasingly complex rituals of giving and taking offense in American society. The demanding and delivering of apologies, the strange habit of being offended on behalf of other people even when you’re not personally offended, the futile but aggressive attempt to quantify offensiveness and demand parity in mudslinging — this is the stuff of degraded political discourse, fit only for politicians, partisans and people who enjoy this kind of sport.

I’m troubled by Kennicott’s charge that the arts in some way fail when they demonstrate sensitivity to prevailing social attitudes. While there are certainly many great works of art that contain misogynistic, racist, and classist attitudes (to name but three), to present them today and excuse them from criticism simply because they are “great” fails to in any way address how society has advanced when addressing inclusion, diversity and equality in the arts. It’s no small matter that the majority of the great works of the Western arts canon were also written by white men, and while that doesn’t negate their value, presenting them as if preserved in amber can be not only profoundly offensive but artistically stultifying.

I don’t happen to take to reworkings of classic works simply in order to fend off complaint; erasing the n-word from Huckleberry Finn struck me as patently absurd when a new edition doing just that appeared a few years ago. By way of example, the same holds true for productions of To Kill A Mockingbird which would eradicate that same word. In both cases, it’s a disservice both to the work and those who consume it. Frankly, I also don’t believe that any work should be, in total, deemed off limits because of changing mores.

But this conversation isn’t as binary as Kennicott presented, a choice between fidelity or censorship. Whether considering a work taught in classrooms or presented professionally on stage, one also has to factor in the interpretation and context, both separately and together.

Mark Lamos’s production of The Taming of the Shrew at Yale Rep in 2003 (T. Charles Erickson photo)

There are many Jews who think The Merchant of Venice should never be performed, due to its ant-Semitic elements; I don’t happen to share their opinion. I would however be troubled to find a production that takes to heart the classification of the play as one of Shakespeare’s comedies, playing the shaming of Shylock for boisterous laughs. I know many people who feel the same way about The Taming of the Shrew, but a production by Mark Lamos at Yale Rep some years ago, featuring an all-male Latino cast, took the casual misogyny of the play, once seen as comic, and transmuted it into an exploration of modern male sexual identity, holding the play at a distance to be examined through a modern framing device, rather than asking us to accept the humbling of Kate as a just dénouement. Given the volume of Shakespeare productions every year, I imagine there are numerous interpretations which don’t bowdlerize the language, but instead imbue the plays with new insight; the Donmar Warehouse’s all-female Julius Caesar and Henry IV surely are important examples.

Mhlekazi Andy Mosiea as Tamino in Isango Ensemble’s The Magic Flute (Keith Pattison photo)

As I contemplated this issue, I happened upon online information about a South African production of The Magic Flute by the Isango Ensemble, currently touring the U.S.,  which has an all-black cast; this presumably immediately alters the perception of the blackamoor Monostatos, who Kennicott used as a key discussion point. At the same time, I was reading a great deal about the Metropolitan Opera’s imminent production of The Death of Klinghoffer, which is at the center of enormous controversy over its depiction of an incident from the real historical past, but on which I can offer no opinion because I haven’t seen it; the controversy only points up the fact that it isn’t solely works from the distant past which can provoke.

Citing counter-examples production by production would be endless, so let me turn to the issue of context. When a class is taught or a company produces a work whose social attitudes reflect less enlightened views, it’s worth noting whether any framing is provided, for students or audience. If a teacher assigned Huckleberry Finn without prior discussion and comprehensive followup, I would question their tact and their skills; to foist the book on students sans preface would, I imagine, be very upsetting to students. The same holds true for reading or seeing The Merchant of Venice without addressing the status of Jews in Shakespeare’s era, in discussion or supporting materials. Exploring how or why we might see these works today, why they may hold value even when they contain retrograde views, seems essential. It won’t necessarily preempt controversy, but it certainly demonstrates that the people presenting the work understand its complexity and challenges, and that they hope to grapple with those challenges by presenting it in a new light.

K. Todd Freeman and Ray Fisher in Fetch Clay, Make Man at New York Theatre Workshop

There are also examples of artists addressing work which would now be seen as offensive by placing it within the context of new works and adaptations. Screenings of films featuring Lincoln Perry, better known by the derogatory name Stepin Fetchit, who at one time was the most famous black actor in the movies, would likely be met by scorn if simply programmed without introduction or discussion of the actor and his character at the time he was working. However, playwright Will Power has worked to address Perry’s legacy by making him a leading character in the play Fetch Clay, Make Man, which places him alongside Cassius Clay (as he became Muhammed Ali) as two icons of African-American popular culture. It’s also unlikely that few theatre companies would produces the once hugely popular melodrama The Octoroon, with its far outdated racial views, but Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has deconstructed the work as part of his play An Octoroon, folding the original material directly into commentary on the same piece.

Jonathan Miller’s production of The Mikado for the English National Opera

There are many who defend The Mikado by citing Gilbert and Sullivan’s love of Asian culture and their efforts to represent it, but that often accompanies productions with white actors in yellowface; this ongoing controversy arose once again this summer in Seattle. But 28 years ago director Jonathan Miller found a way to present the work by resetting it in a seaside English resort, allowing the characters in what was widely known to be a spoof of the British aristocracy to be seen as exactly that, instead of antiquated racial caricatures. Again, context and interpretation is all.

I take exception to Kennicott’s characterization of “Cultural leaders who fret about art causing discomfort,” since it evidences a lack of comprehension of the role of those leaders. Yes, we should want all artistic ventures to be brave and bold, and to even take audiences places where they might not necessarily think to go. But they must do so in the context of serving their community, and indeed their many communities, because they do not and cannot exist in a vacuum where art cannot be challenged, often vigorously, in critiques and discussion simply because it has been declared art.

In every generation, art is a dialogue between artists and audiences, whether in performance or fixed texts and images; just as some works aren’t recognized or accepted when first created, there are also those which cease to hold meaning or whose meaning changes as society advances. If an artistic leader chooses to produce a season of vintage works with passé portrayals of women, people of color, people with disabilities, sexual orientation and so on as they might have first been seen, that is absolutely their right. But it is also the right of those who know the work or see it to challenge those decisions – though I abhor the kinds of threats that have emerged over Klinghoffer or Exhibit B at the Barbican, even as I support the rights of the voices which oppose those works to express their opinions. It is very easy in theory to say all works should remain fixed, but reality is another matter altogether.

There are no absolutes in this discussion. If works out of copyright are altered for this production or that, the work itself remains fixed for yet another day, and each example can be judged in relation to the original text. Inevitably, for every leader, whether teacher or producer, it is a matter of balancing a wide range of opinions and perceptions. I personally believe in art for art’s sake alongside art for audiences’ sake, but art for history’s sake serves only the past and runs the risk of propagating the failings of the past. In the arts, history should not be wholly erased, but it should first and foremost be the foundation upon which we build a better future.

P.S. Among the examples Kennicott cites as falling prey to cultural sanitization is Amos and Andy. While it is true that the show was recognized as an avatar of racial insensitivity when viewed through the enlightened prism of the 1960s civil rights struggle, its absence from the airwaves or cable box is now due just as much to it no longer being commercially viable as to its racial stereotyping. That holds true as well for countless shows from the era, for reasons ranging from a changed society where the work is no longer seen as positive (such as my childhood favorites F Troop and I Dream of Jeannie) to their being in black and white and in the old TV aspect ratio. But Amos and Andy hasn’t been erased: you can view the TV episodes in the collection of the Paley Center for Media or buy the DVDs on Amazon and see for yourself why it’s now for the history books and academic, not mass entertainment.

A couple of weeks ago, yet another high school play was canceled over its content, this time at Santiago High School in Corona, California. Unlike the cases we often hear about, there was no press about the decision, no student protest, no faculty outcry. By the time I learned of it and communicated briefly on social media with a couple of students involved in the show, they were ready to just move on. The play was to have been performed in the latter part of this month.

Hearts Like Fists at Theatre of NOTE

The play, Hearts Like Fists, was first produced only two years ago, debuting at Theatre of NOTE in Los Angeles in August 2012. It made its East Coast premiere in December of the same year at New York’s Flux Theatre Ensemble. Described in a synopsis as “a superhero noir comedy about the dangers of love,” it has already been produced at several high schools, including the Jewish Community High School of the Bay Area and at Sachse High School in Sachse, Texas; it will be done next month at TMI – The Episcopal School of Texas in San Antonio. As someone who sees real value in high school students having the opportunity to work on contemporary plays, I was very pleased to see that such a new work had been quickly found by schools.

How did I learn of the quiet cancelation in Corona? My high school theatre advocacy was mentioned in conversation on Facebook where the play’s author, Adam Szymkowicz, had shared the news, which he only learned of through students who had contacted him on Twitter. While a school representative, in response to my inquiry, said that the cancelation was due to the play not having received the proper approval, that is an oft-cited reason that typically differs from other accounts. But with no other accounts to go by in this case, I’m left only with a vague sense of something amiss, since I doubt that any teacher would go into rehearsal for a show without having followed the appropriate protocols. That would be a willful challenge to an administration, putting employment at risk.

Advertising for production at Theatre of NOTE

In my opinion, the play has an enormous amount to offer school theatre troupes, as it addresses love, rejection, and female empowerment by inverting many comic book tropes, offering strong female roles in a stylized ensemble work with 9 or 10 roles. It does, however, contain stage violence and a handful of phrases that might well bring parents up short. Shorn of context, they include, “She knees him in the groin,” “I promised you angry sex,” and “I’m thinking about your body pressed against mine…I’m thinking about taking of all your clothes piece by piece…Then I would tear into you, with my hands and with my teeth. I would leave marks.”

While these phrases are not typical of the dialogue in Hearts Like Fists, and indeed these examples comprise the majority of what I thought could prove problematic for schools, one can imagine parents who might take exception to hearing this out of the mouths of 17-year-olds, even if the same students might discuss such things in their own lives or hear them even on broadcast TV. But as a result, the skittishness of administrators to allow them to be spoken in performance is not a complete shock. It’s a shame, really, because the play offers so much, but schools have long proven themselves to be risk averse.

I know Szymkowicz entirely from online interactions, stemming in large part from his impressive ongoing series of interviews with other playwrights, so I reached out to him about the cancelation, both before and after reading the play. Via e-mail, I asked Szymkowicz about the fact that in his Facebook dialogue, he seemed disinclined to make an issue of the cancelation.

Adam Szymkowicz

“As a playwright I am used to plays being postponed or cancelled for various reasons,” he replied. “Productions appear out of nowhere and sometimes just as mysteriously, planned productions don’t happen. I’m not saying it’s a fun thing about being a playwright but at this point I’m used to it. It never occurred to me that I have any power in whether or not planned productions do actually happen. Either people want to do a play or they don’t. I can’t make people do my play just because they said they would.” Szymkowicz noted that the show has had 10 productions, with four more coming up, and would soon be his most produced work.

Had he ever thought about Hearts Like Fists as a play for high schools, I wondered. “No,” was his simple reply. “It was a commission for South Coast Repertory. But I specifically didn’t have cursing in it because of how sensitive it seemed that Orange County audience was to curse words based on the reading of another play I had there.  The fact that high schools have been doing it is a happy accident.”

But, in hindsight, does he believe there are facets of the play that particularly speak to high school performers and/or audiences? “I think loving the wrong person is an experience a lot of people have in high school,” he observed. “Also being a secret superhero (metaphorically) or having super powers not yet fully expressed. All general love confusion. High school is, for some, a confusing time.”

As is the case with a number of newer musicals, I wondered if he would consider authorizing a high school version of the show, with his own content edits. “I looked at the play once,” he wrote, “a year or so ago, with an eye to that, but I couldn’t figure out how to make tamer versions of certain scenes still work.”

Given the few phrases that might well give schools pause, I wondered whether Szymkowicz had considered that schools that have done or will do the show might be making their own, unauthorized edits, and how he would feel about that. He replied, “I wouldn’t like that and, of course, as you know, contractually they are forbidden from doing so.”

However, he wasn’t opposed to school editions on principle, saying, “If it doesn’t harm the play, sure. I am glad high schools are doing more challenging work and pushing boundaries and creating conversations. I worry about work that is sanitized past the point of having meaning or worth. But if you as a writer can take out something too adult (not that we all agree on what that is) but still have a play you are proud of, more power to you. Some wonderful plays are done frequently at the high school level.”

Finally, I asked Szymkowicz whether there was anything he’d like to say to the students, or to the administration, about the play being canceled.

“I spoke to a few of the students over Twitter who seem heartbroken and sent my regrets that this happened after they had already started rehearsals. I suspect the administration thought it would harm his/her community in some way to do this play. I think it is a bigger harm to not let them do the play.  But look. I’m a playwright, not an administrator. I think theater is a good thing. I think communication is always better than shutting down conversations that make us uncomfortable. And honestly I also think my play is kind of tame. I suspect if these kids wrote plays themselves they would be much more upsetting or explicit than my play.”

I happen to agree strongly with Szymkowicz that communication is better than cancelation, and I believe that somewhere in the process of play selection, the start of production at Santiago High and the cancelation, some essential communication was missed. I admire the teacher who wanted to bring new work to her students and I respect the playwright for his decision that any alteration in the play would be to its detriment, and that even in high schools, he wants to see his play done as written, which is his absolute right. Much as I’d like to figure out if there’s a villain here, I can’t. And, sadly, circumstances have insured that Szymkowicz’s villain, the rejected, lovelorn Doctor X won’t be found at Santiago High either.

I am angry and I am sad. But I am not entirely surprised.

Earlier this morning, Dawn Burch, drama director at South Williamsport Area Junior/Senior High School in Pennsylvania, was fired from her position. By e-mail. The reason given? “Job performance.”

It doesn’t take a detective to figure out what’s really going on. At the beginning of July, Burch asserted that her musical choice for this school year, Spamalot, had been nixed by the school due to its gay content. School officials vehemently denied that was the case.

In late August, Keystone Progress and I received copies of school e-mails between Burch, principal Jesse Smith and superintendent Mark Stamm regarding the decision. An e-mail from Smith from the end of June cited “homosexual themes” as the reason for canceling the show.

So now, less than a month after the administration’s efforts to hide their own actions were revealed, Burch suddenly loses her job. Save for holding auditions and beginning rehearsals for the school’s fall play, Alice in Wonderland, she has barely undertaken her job for this year, as prior to that it was summer break. When exactly did these job performance issues come to light? Awfully coincidental, no?

I believe Burch has been fired for telling the truth. Burch has been fired for not being willing to accept that gay life was not something to be hidden away, not something to be ashamed of, not something to be afraid of. It hardly takes another Right-to-Know request to put together the pieces.

I wanted to interview Burch about what has transpired, but she was too emotional to say much more than the bare facts of the firing as cited above, except to express concern about what would happen to the fall play and to the students already cast, who were looking forward to being in the show. Will it still happen? Who knows. But even on a difficult day, Burch’s main concern was for the students. She may not be a teacher (and therefore has no tenure), but putting the needs of students first is a sign of an excellent teacher, accredited or not. There are many ways to teach.

It’s worth noting that at a Board of Education meeting a week and a half ago, conversation regarding the Spamalot issue was expressly deferred until this coming Monday, September 22. So it’s quite remarkable that this decisive action took place even before the South Williamsport community could discuss the issue publicly; that they were denied any opportunity to speak before the issue was resolved and that it became a referendum on Burch’s performance, rather than about condoning homophobia and then hiding that fact. Will the topic still be discussed Monday night? Perhaps. But there’s going to be a lot of discussion in the past tense when it comes to Burch.

Perhaps we’ll all be surprised. Perhaps overwhelming support for Burch will be in evidence on Monday night. Perhaps the Board of Ed members will discover that this is an issue that will be a factor when they run for reelection. Perhaps parents will make clear that they can’t trust the word of the board chair, the superintendent and the principal, given their efforts to obscure the truth in this situation. Perhaps the press will cover the fallout of this firing with rigor and depth, and a truer picture will emerge.

I don’t know how the students will feel, or what they’ll be told about the loss of their drama director. I don’t know how they’ll react, or if they will at all. But just as kids are smart enough to intuit a great many things from a very early age, I suspect many of them are going to realize that they’ve just been given a lesson in right and wrong, in honor and duplicity, in the politics of fear and silence. They’ve seen just how badly their elders can behave in the name of protecting them. I hope they’ll see through it as well.

And I hope they’ll realize that Dawn Burch is a hero. I think plenty of people already do.