Catholicism, Costa Mesa and ‘Sister Mary’ Will Survive

To be a good columnist, I suppose I should get easily riled up about things. Lord knows, a lot of things bug me.

And what easier way to get upset than to pick up the newspaper and see what my fellow citizens are doing and saying. So I’m reading the paper, all the while on the lookout for a good excuse to become indignant, when, lo and behold, here come the Feeneys of Costa Mesa, husband John and wife Ernie, practically charging right off the page.

The Feeneys want the Costa Mesa City Council to cancel a production at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse because they think the play, “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You,” is blasphemously anti-Catholic. The play, argue the Feeneys, amounts to a religious activity, and the city isn’t supposed to spend public money on religious or political activities.

Ergo, get this thing off Broadway and especially off Hamilton Street in Costa Mesa.

Hey, wait a minute, I say to myself. This sounds like censorship! This is supposed to really tick me off. I read on, doing my best to muster anger, but it’s not coming. Instead, I have a vague desire to go to the lunchroom and get an apple. Where’s my sense of outrage? Why am I so . . . uncaring?

I call David Sharp, a playhouse board member and co-producer of the play. Surely, he’s upset by all this. Surely enough, he is.

He says he’s speaking for himself and not for the board when he says he’s afraid the Feeneys will actually succeed in shutting down the theater, which puts on five plays a year and seats 90 people.

“We didn’t pick ‘Sister Mary’ to make any kind of statement,” Sharp says. Citing problems with two other plays that the playhouse board originally selected to open the season, the board settled on “Sister Mary” because “we thought it would be a funny show to open the season with.”

The Feeneys apparently laughed all the way to City Council. Sharp said the playhouse can’t afford to ignore the challenge. “We didn’t get into this to make a statement, but now we’re embroiled in it and we can’t take it too lightly at all. We’re faced with what we consider to be censorship, and I think it’s a symptom of the radical right resurgence in the U.S. that’s threatening more than just a little community theater.”

Ernie Feeney says she hates to hear the word censorship. The issue, she says, is spending public money on such a purely religious matter.

I asked her if she would be taking the same position if the play glorified Catholicism. No, she wouldn’t, she said. “It’s the blasphemous nature in which it’s done.” Among the many insults, she says, is an Ernie likeness from Sesame Street that’s used to portray the Baby Jesus. The doll has a red nose, orange face and “hair like Don King.”

I’m not Catholic, but that isn’t exactly the Baby Jesus I remember either. But I have to be honest with you--even if it means going straight to hell--it doesn’t really upset me all that much.

But I can understand why it would upset others. After all, this play has been around for a few years and has provoked similar protests in other cities around the country, all of which ended with the play going on and life going on and the Roman Catholic Church somehow surviving the onslaught of a lone playwright.

Which, I think, is why I can’t get too upset about all this. The play will run its course in Costa Mesa. Some will like it, some won’t. Some will walk out of it, and some will slap their thighs all night long and think it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen in their whole life.

As for me, I haven’t seen the play and I don’t know the Feeneys. They’re probably the nicest people in the world and a terrific bridge team. Mrs. Feeney, now 50, said she converted to Catholicism only seven years ago.

I find myself wondering, “Do I want such a recent convert having so much say about whether a play should be canceled or not?”

I think not.

Yet, the outrage doesn’t build within me.

But my job description requires that I formulate an opinion on the subject, and I now have one (and a tad on the Solomonic side, if I do say so myself).

Here’s what should have happened: The Costa Mesa City Council should have listened politely while the Feeneys made their point, making sure they didn’t exceed the prescribed time limit for public input. Then a council member should have said: “Thank you for a lovely presentation. It’s citizens like you who give participatory democracy its vitality. Now, please retake your seats and don’t ever bring up this ridiculous issue again.”

Further, the council shouldn’t consider for a minute the possibility of running any play out of town. It also should not end its funding of the arts, which Mrs. Feeney also supports.

And finally, in a conciliatory gesture, the playhouse should follow “Sister Mary” with a play that the Feeneys would approve of. I would suggest Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”