Suicide bombers – particularly young female ones – were not yet as explored by films and documentaries as they have become, and the average, un-invested American was not as familiar with the layers of complexity surrounding the issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as many are today. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli lobbies and groups were working the media over time to have their points of view on the conflict override that of the others. The atmosphere was intensely political.
There are numerous historical instances of campaigns launched by “special interest groups” and their acts of protest against plays up and running. This is not censorship, for once a ticket has been sold and the doors of a theater opened, any and all reactions from critics to picket-line protesters are protected by our Constitution, provided they result in no physical harm to anyone involved.
If what happened in Cincinnati in 2002 to my play had simply been that, I would not be writing this.
The Lazarus New Play Prize for Young Audiences that it received was in place at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park to allow them to develop plays that spoke directly to the “hot button” issues of the day, encourage dialogue, and thinking among high-school audiences. I can only laud the intention of the team in Cincinnati for attempting what one journalist would later call a “fool’s errand.”
In December 2002, when I had a fifth draft of the play, the theatre thought it a good idea to invite a rabbi, a professor of Middle Eastern studies, and what they thought would be one or two members of Cincinnati’s Muslim community of approximately fifteen thousand, to hear it read and offer what it anticipated would be constructive feedback. The rabbi came, the professor of Middle Eastern studies came, and after they’d all drifted in, approximately seventeen men and women who’d been “alerted” by the Islamic Center in Cincinnati “to show up,” I was later told by a young Palestinian college student, “because a Zionist play was being planned by a Zionist theater and had been given a Zionist prize.”
Pre-concluded, seven men sat glowering at the large table and heard the play read, following along in scripts provided, then systematically lashed out and cut it to shreds. We were told in a jaw-dropping, aggressive, bullying manner that the play contained many “errors,” which I won’t list in detail as they’ve been written about extensively by others. At one point, after the fusillades of incredible accusations had been fielded, the leader of this group walked over to me with the copy of the play that had been provided as a courtesy for him to follow in the reading and declared, “I am taking this with me. I will put marks where you must make corrections.” That word. I opened my cell phone and told him to either put my property down on the table or I’d call the Cincinnati police. Yes, it got very dicey. This same Palestinian student who told me about the “Zionist” plot also said to me, once the very intimidating leader of the group was out of the room, “I wished the floor would open up and swallow me, I was so embarrassed by what they did to you and your play. It’s very good. Just make them talk more like us.”
After the reading, numerous events followed in rapid order. The one that set the “battle” in motion was my opponent’s success is obtaining a hearing about the play before Cincinnati’s Commission on Human Relations – an organ of civic government – before the Playhouse even had a chance to respond to their concerns. The Playhouse was given approximately twelve hours' notice by the commission that the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) would be presenting their grievances about my play before it. And that is exactly what they did. A “Fact Sheet on Paradise” was written, listing twenty-two “violations” – from names of characters and settings of scenes to lines of dialogue – and handed to all the members of the commission. I was in the fifth draft of the play; had anyone asked me to write a “fact sheet” on what was still fluid and in process, I’d have had trouble doing so; nonetheless, my opponents did.
I maintain that the very act of a civic governmental commission’s hearing and acceptance of a “fact sheet” listing grievances and calling for revisions of an unproduced, unfinished play nudged up so closely to “prior restraint” under the First Amendment that the City of Cincinnati was beginning to feel like old Red Moscow. Apparently overnight, the commissioners did too, because the following day they returned them all and stated, I was told, that they were “not in the business of censorship.”
In a gesture meant to debunk the calumny that the play, the Playhouse, and all involved were parts of a “Zionist” conspiracy to discredit Palestinians, the play’s Jewish director voluntarily stepped down. Once this news broke, the Playhouse was also accused of being anti-Semitic.
To insure that the play would never be performed in front of high-school seniors, two principals were visited by my detractors. What had been a completely sold-out tour intended to conclude with a staging of the playback at the Playhouse collapsed like a house of cards. The Playhouse dropped the play.
To their credit, after letters of protest from The Dramatists Guild and PEN American, they scheduled an open public reading of it, which I wasn’t able to get to because I was snowed in New York. I was told that after bomb-sniffing dogs checked the theatre, the audience was let in and, in a tightly moderated forum, allowed to respond to the play on written cards. I have them all, and their response was overwhelmingly positive – as it has been consistently wherever it’s been done.
There’s an issue here that has been overlooked by the hundreds of people who’ve written about the story: was an “in-house, invited-only, table-read” of a play still in development really necessary? I know that the Playhouse thought that, because of its subject and their intention to tour high schools, an invitation to all parties was the politically correct thing to do. I wonder, though, when is community “inclusivity” in mid-development of any play ever anything but an invitation for an incipient form of censorship disguised as “feedback” or “suggestions” about “the right thing to do?”
As gigantic entertainment conglomerates take over the commercial arena, the ethics of the film and television industry replace those of tough, risk-taking, visionary producers. Fortunately for us, there are enough of them left running theater companies bravely that I don’t think all is lost. Still, artistic directors are overseen by boards, and we can cite the instance of New York Theater Workshop’s cancellation of the “pro-Palestinian” play My Name Is Rachel Corrie as a glaring instance in the recent past where interior comfort within a producing organization led to a play’s cancellation.
In my case in Cincinnati, it was the board of the theatre that stated “this is not a fight we want to take on,” which resulted in the theatre’s dropping the play.
Was it “state” censorship? No. It was, however, a determined, calculated, and effectively executed campaign of fear-mongering within a city by a single religious/nationalist special-interest group launched in the name of “protecting” highschool seniors from a “dangerous” question-box of a play.
I wish I could report that having won the round in Cincinnati, CAIR let it go, but they did not. On the day of the play’s first reading in New York City, an email went out from their national headquarters to various affiliates in New York, boasting of CAIR Ohio’s success in stopping the play and urging that it be stopped here as well. It didn’t matter that it was now a ninety-minute play written for an adult audience – they wanted it gone.
Every story has the right to be told from as many perspectives as there are playwrights who have them. The not-for-profit theaters can’t be hijacked by boards and funders whose conditions are that they tow their political line on anything – certainly something as complex and multi-experienced as the conflicts in the Middle East.
Audiences – just as playwrights – have a right to do their own thinking.
In today’s expanding atmosphere of intimidation – one that now threatens journalists with high treason and charges of espionage for writing – we’re all being called on to adhere to the principles of freedom that are not defined by this imperial administration or the edicts of any religious/nationalist groups. If one is compelled to create works that honestly grapple with the complexity of the issues of America and the Middle East, then prepare to dig in – every word will be viewed as “political” by someone.