Campus Drama: Principal Bans High School Play

Tired of staging standard high school fare such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Our Town,” drama students at El Dorado High were excited when they first saw another school perform the play “And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson.”

Eager to stage a contemporary work that has not been performed countless times on high school stages across the country, the El Dorado drama students chose it for their May production.

Now, they doubt whether the play about a young woman with cerebral palsy will make it beyond rehearsals at their school. Earlier this week, their principal, Richard Bernier, rejected the students’ pleas to let them stage the play, saying that it contains offensive language and sexual innuendo.

Bernier and other school officials say that they support progressive, artistic works, but contend that they must take into consideration the sensitivities of family audiences when such works are presented to the public.

“While it may be appropriate to do at a college or a community group, it is not appropriate as a high school production,” Bernier said Wednesday. “There must be many, many plays out there . . . where it is not so replete with what I see as vulgarities. For a high school production, I think we can choose material that is less graphic.”

Under scrutiny are several scenes in the play, including ones in which the lead character, Elizabeth, has sexual fantasies. In one scene, 24-year-old Elizabeth fantasizes about the children’s song “I’m a Little Teapot,” but it is reworded as “I’m a Little Sexpot.”

On Tuesday, about 20 students presented a petition with 250 signatures to the school board asking members to force Bernier to reconsider his decision and read a copy of the play that deleted controversial words and lines. Bernier said that he will read the edited version but that he doubts he will change his mind.

“I’ll at least read it, although I don’t know how they’re going to edit out every third page,” he said. “I told them don’t get their hopes up.”

Gai Jones, the drama students’ teacher, said that she doesn’t mind deleting words from the play, adding that she wouldn’t want to direct anything that was “derogatory, sexually offensive or demeaning.” But she added that she wouldn’t change the play so much that it loses its message.

“We were very moved by the play,” Jones said. “I have wonderfully talented students who would like this challenge. . . . All I ask is that we get a fair hearing.”

Bernier said his major concern is about the various age groups who go to see high school plays, such as performers’ younger siblings and grandparents.

“I have to take into view community mores and values,” he said. “Most of the audience at a high school play are not really coming to the play because there is going to be this great moral statement about how we treat handicapped people--they go to support the kids. . . . We have to be real careful, and we have to consider that Placentia is a conservative community.”

But Jones said that Bernier has objected to scenes in other, more established plays that her students have performed in the past year, including “Tom Jones” and “Lil’ Abner,” and several short plays by Christopher Durang. Bernier has since asked to see copies of scripts before they are staged, Jones said.

“He basically would like a happy ending for every play we did,” she said.

The play’s author, Jim Leonard Jr., said that Bernier simply didn’t get the full message of the play and only took into consideration the play’s racier parts.

“My first reaction is, I’m astonished that anyone would want to ban this play,” Leonard, 33, said in a telephone interview from Tempe, Ariz. “It seems to me it upholds and champions hopes and values, tolerance and understanding. My second reaction is that I’m proud of these kids who want to fight for this. Censorship is a means toward a very nebulous end.”

The students, led by senior Melissa Frydman, say that Bernier’s restrictions stifle to their creativity and intellectual growth.

“The thing that made me mad was that if this continues to go on, we aren’t going to be able to perform anything,” said freshman Joel Gladwell.

Jerry Patch, the dramaturge at the South Coast Repertory, said that the action was a “trifle conservative.” But he added that high school officials are under pressure to err on the side of caution because of the parent factor.

“Any principal has to know his or her own school,” he said. “What may be appropriate for one may not be for another.

” . . . I’ve been head of a college theater department,” Patch said. “Artistically, you have to make a decision: Is this justified? But I’m sure the principal is thinking in terms of public relations, and thinking, ‘What the hell, it’s not worth it.’ ”

Some students say that the play is right for Placentia, which can only stand to gain.

“I think the play has a reason to be done in this community,” said senior Beth Thompson. “There’s always ridicule, and this play shows it’s not right to ridicule.”

In January, students from La Jolla High School performed the play at the High School Theater Festival, held at Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton. Walter Stewart, the drama teacher at the school, said that no one objected to the play, but if they had, he wouldn’t been too too surprised.

Such uproar, he said, is nothing new. When he was a high school senior in 1950, he was in a performance of “You Can’t Take It With You.” The play was performed before an elementary school audience, and many parents were irate over some of its adult content.

“Now,” Stewart said, “I’m sure you’d sit there and wonder what on earth was the problem.”