Stage Uproar Could Haunt Playhouse : Funding: Despite accepting a finding that ‘Sister Mary’ did not violate city rules, council members criticize the theater’s choice of plays.

The immediate danger has passed for the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse in the controversy over its production of “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You,” but the theater company’s future may have been clouded by the brouhaha.

At its Monday meeting, the City Council accepted the city attorney’s finding that the production, which takes a satiric look at Roman Catholic education, does not violate a clause of the city’s cultural arts grant agreement forbidding use of city funds for “religious activity.”

But after hearing more than an hour of public comment both for and against the production, four of the five council members nevertheless took the playhouse to task for selecting Christopher Durang’s caustic piece to open its 1990 season.

“If I voted today, I would probably vote not to fund the civic playhouse,” Councilman Orville Amburgey said during the meeting. “There are enough plays that we can go out there and perform that won’t be offensive to anyone.”

Amburgey said the play has divided the city, and he accused the playhouse board of deliberately stirring the controversy. “That’s an area that we don’t need any more of in this community,” Amburgey said.

“My wife and I are patrons (of the playhouse) this year. It’s questionable whether we will be patrons next year.”

The playhouse receives free rent and other operational assistance from the city in addition to a $20,000 cash grant this year. An additional $9,400 grant for the playhouse has been recommended by the city Arts Commission but has yet to be affirmed by the City Council.

Councilwoman Sandra L. Genis has said that amount is “not set in stone” and said again Monday that arts organizations should be more accountable for their use of city funds. Genis criticized “Sister Mary,” which she read but did not see.

“I was offended for the Catholics,” she said. “I felt that they were presented in a denigrating manner.”

Genis also lambasted arts activists for what she called personal attacks against Costa Mesa residents John and Ernie Feeney, who have led the offensive against the playhouse’s production of “Sister Mary.”

Sounding a familiar call in the continuing debate over public funding of the arts, Genis said the issue is one of “sponsorship, not censorship.”

Vice Mayor Mary Hornbuckle said that she is “not anxious to be cast in the role of censor” but added that she feels it is appropriate for the council to look at the history of an organization when handing out grants.

While critical of the decision to mount “Sister Mary,” Hornbuckle said that it was an isolated incident in the playhouse’s history and that she does not consider the playhouse “an organization that seeks continually to offend or titillate.” Hornbuckle also warned that the city’s arts grants could be wiped out entirely because of continuing budget problems.

“I’m a little sad that this controversy has come to pass,” Hornbuckle said. “I do think it behooves us to remember that these are taxpayer dollars.”

Councilman Ed Glasgow pronounced himself “offended” by the production of “Sister Mary,” while Mayor Peter F. Buffa withheld comment.

Jane Sharp, a member of the playhouse board, was conciliatory in comments to the council but stopped short of apologizing for the production.

The board did not mount the play to raise controversy, she told the council. “We would not consciously offend members of the community. . . . We had blundered onto the edge of many issues,” she said.

Outside the council chambers, Sharp admitted that the playhouse board is concerned about future funding. “We exist because the city allows us to exist,” Sharp explained.

She met with the Feeneys later, offering to set up a forum between the board and critics of the play to help smooth differences and avoid future conflicts. The board wants to know “why this has bothered so many people,” Sharp said.

Ernie Feeney, meanwhile, said she is not sure of the next step she and other opponents of “Sister Mary” will take, but she promised that “this city will never be torn apart for a religious issue again.”

The play ended its sold-out run Sunday.

The Feeneys, longtime city residents, had pushed Costa Mesa into the national debate over public arts funding earlier this

year when they complained in June about a South Coast Repertory flyer calling for support of the embattled National Endowment for the Arts.

The council responded by delaying distribution of $175,000 in cultural grants to 13 groups while it looked into whether SCR had used any city funds in printing or distributing the flyers. The funds later were released, but the council eventually adopted new language on arts grants agreements forbidding the use of city money for “obscene matters” or “religious or political activity.”

That clause was invoked by the Feeneys last month in their objection to “Sister Mary.” But City Atty. Thomas A. Kathe found last week that the city had no grounds to demand repayment of funds from the theater company because the “primary purpose of the play appears to be secular and not sectarian.”