PATRON VOWS TO DISRUPT PLAY OVER USE OF WORD

Disturbed by offensive language in a play being performed here, a theater patron says he will disrupt future performances if the once-deleted words are restored.

“I don’t care who wrote the play, I don’t like the remark,” Edward Brisgel said.

Brisgel was talking about the term kikes, used in Frank Gilroy’s play “The Subject Was Roses.” The play, which won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize, is set in 1946, when a son returns from World War II. It’s about the young man’s relationship with his parents.

The objectionable language occurs when the character of John Cleary tries to goad his son into a fight. “Let the Jews support you,” Cleary says. “If it hadn’t been for them, we wouldn’t have gotten into (the war) in the first place. Lousy kikes.”

“By getting those remarks, what do they bring out? Did it improve the play?” Brisgel asked. “And here was (someone) in the back three rows snickering, ‘He’s right.’ ”

The situation, in which theater officers say they acted with concern for the feelings of their patrons, has put the officials in a dilemma. After learning that the language had hurt the feelings of at least four of its patrons, two of whom threatened to disrupt performances, the officials agonized over what to do.

“Everyone’s initial reaction was don’t” cut the lines, said Kevin Mullin, president of the Santee Community Theatre and director of the play. Mullin gave the story to the newspapers.

“I was hoping that by getting it in print the people that were objecting would have to stop long enough to see what we were talking about,” Mullin said. The theater also queried the play’s publisher about the situation.

“The play is about something,” Mullin said. “If it’s disrupted, what happen’s to (Gilroy’s) play? Who hears his play?”

The publisher, Samuel French, was sympathetic to the theater’s plight, Mullin said, but did not say the play must be performed uncut. In fact, a publisher’s representative said no one would be there to check the script, Mullin said.

“If they had said then that we could not cut the lines, we would not have,” he said.

French reversed its position Tuesday and ordered the theater company to restore the lines or cease performances, after a reporter told Gilroy of the deletion.

The lines had offended Juda and Dora Bernstein, Brisgel, and his wife, Molly. Juda Bernstein has said he would not protest the play if the language was restored. But Brisgel isn’t backing down.

In 1984 the same play was performed at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre and no objections were registered, officials there say.

Morris Casuto, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, agreed with the right of the Bernsteins and the Brisgels to protest the play, but said he does not think it is anti-Semitic.

“You can’t argue with an individual that a word like kikes disturbs him . . . but to pretend that we live in a world where these comments are not made, is to live in a dream world that is more dangerous,” Casuto said. “You have to look at a play in the total context of a work of art.”

After polling the board of directors Wednesday, Mullin said the lines would be restored.

The theater will provide a notice to patrons that the play contains language that might be considered objectionable.

The final performances are scheduled to take place at 8 p.m. tonight and Saturday at Cajon Park School, 10300 North Magnolia, Santee.