Debate Continues Over NEA Grants
It’s bad enough that my work is being scapegoated. It’s worse that it--and I--are being lied about. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s letter (July 18) does both.
Rohrabacher has reduced my hour and one-half, critically acclaimed play to a distortion. “Blessed Are All the Little Fishes” is about faith, despair, ecology and, yes, water. Following a precedent in several well-known plays, the script does represent urination for a brief moment. This is part of an elaborate, thoughtful, humorous and ultimately human context. Contrary to Rohrabacher’s allegations, the character does not urinate onto a picture of Jesus Christ. The character does urinate into a prop toilet with a picture of Jesus above it. There’s a big difference.
In troubled times, art is powerful and Rohrabacher so fears the power of art that he must lie to justify reducing what is already the smallest arts budget in the industrial world.
The controversy over “Fishes” is a tempest in a porcelain pot.
JOHN FLECK
Los Angeles
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