‘Ad Wars’ Is More Relevant Than Ever

After being on the schedule for more than a year, my play “Ad Wars,” a world premiere and Main Stage production at the Pasadena Playhouse, was canceled. The reasons given by Playhouse Executive Director Lars Hansen are pure deja vu for a child of the ‘60s. To quote Hansen: “With the situation in the Middle East . . . it’s not a good time to look at war from a satirical point of view.” And the play “shows a sense of humor that isn’t relevant any longer.”

The Pasadena Playhouse has the right to produce anything it wants. But who put it in charge of telling the world what’s relevant?

“Ad Wars” is about ethics. It’s about the business of war and the crisis of ethics in American business. It’s about a New York ad agency that is given the task of promoting a new weapon to the Army and then proceeds to do so without a second thought given to the ethics of such an enterprise. Yes, it’s a comedy. But it’s also business as usual in America. It’s business that in this case supports the military-industrial complex, which, in effect, has already won its continuing war on our national budget.

I don’t come to this subject out of a vacuum. I was close enough to the ad wars and the merchants of war for the president of a large defense contractor to tell me once that any “hot spot” in the world was his company’s bread and butter. And any war was its gravy. The justification for the big budget bucks was as real as Grenada, Central America or the Middle East. That’s why the play is relevant.

My play does not denigrate the thousands of Americans in the Saudi desert. Indeed, they should be foremost in our prayers. But why is it not “relevant” to examine our country’s continuing lack of conscience, from the military industrial complex to the savings and loans to the media? We’re talking theater here--traditionally, the most open forum in America. Johnson and Nixon told us it was un-American to question Vietnam. You would have thought we would have learned our lesson by now.