The Redgrave Case: ‘Common Sense’ or Censorship?

“Isn’t that what we’re trying to defend in the Soviet Union right now?” asked Vanessa Redgrave. “People have the right to say what they believe.”

She spoke Tuesday, after an arbitrator ruled that her dismissal from a proposed L.A.-bound tour of “Lettice and Lovage” was not a case of political discrimination and blacklisting, as she had contended.

Arbitrator Daniel Collins ruled that Redgrave lost her $540,000, 36-week job not because of the substance of her remarks opposing the Gulf War, but rather because of their likely economic effect.

He noted that the war was supported by “overwhelming American public opinion” and that Redgrave’s Feb. 8 ad in the New York Times, explaining earlier anti-Gulf War statements, ran while Americans were suffering casualties and being held captive. “Whether or not theatergoers in the tour cities had read Redgrave’s statement . . . the media would surely have made them aware of it by the time the touring production arrived. It would be hard not to conclude . . . that the producers reasonably believed that the tour would have been unprofitable.”

Audience surveys in the tour cities weren’t necessary, wrote Collins, a law professor at New York University. He credited the producers with simply using “experience and common sense.”

Collins also cited “widespread antipathy in the New York Jewish community to Ms. Redgrave’s stated positions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian situation” and evidence that Redgrave’s 1989 New York appearance in “Orpheus Descending,” “which had been a hit in London . . . lost money and was forced to close early because traditional support at the box office by Jewish organizations was not forthcoming.”

Redgrave hotly denied the assumption that her political opinions would hurt the “Lettice” tour.

“Are we all barbarians?” she asked. “People believe in people expressing themselves. They can separate that from the work they do.”

“It’s especially a slander to say that Jewish people” would not separate her politics from her performances, she added. “I wouldn’t be acting today if it weren’t for Jewish artists . . . who spoke out in my defense in Boston (during a similar dispute with the Boston Symphony Orchestra) and in Actors’ Equity,” the union that supported her “Lettice and Lovage” grievance. “Jewish artists have suffered the most from blacklisting and from (totalitarian) regimes.”

Redgrave also disputed the idea that the London audiences who liked “Orpheus Descending” were more capable than Americans of differentiating between her political opinions and her work on stage: “You’re not going to tell me that London is more developed and advanced, are you?”

LATC BOOSTERS: There isn’t much that most of the other financially strapped theaters in town can do for Los Angeles Theatre Center. But a number of theatrical stars have said they’ll appear at an LATC benefit Monday.

Among the expected performers are Danny Glover, Rita Moreno, Martin Landau, Kim Miyori, Carl Lumbly, Bud Cort, Carol Kane, Sab Shimono, Joan Van Ark, Roscoe Lee Browne, Lainie Kazan, Karen Morrow, Jonelle Allen, Georgia Brown, Quetzalcoatl and Nobu McCarthy, with Charles Nelson Reilly as emcee. Tickets cost $50 or $100. Information: (213) 627-6500.

The exception to the rule about other theaters’ inability to help LATC is the Mark Taper Forum. Taper officials allowed their “Widows” to be used as a replacement for the canceled “Comedy of Errors” in the LATC season. Subtracting the projected single ticket revenue from “Errors” from the anticipated production costs, this is expected to save LATC between $150,000 and $200,000. It also means that plans to replace “Errors” with a show from LATC’s Black Artists Theatre Workshop are now off.

For the Taper, the “Widows” deal fills empty seats. With a weekly gross of less than $70,000 out of a potential $117,500, “Widows” is no hit. Since LATC subscribers were informed of the deal, the Taper has received a daily average of 160 requests for tickets from LATC subscribers. Those who already subscribed to both theaters are being offered extra “Widows” tickets.

The Taper also contributed $15,000 to keep the LATC scenery shop open and chipped in the use of its costume shop and some costumes for LATC’s “Bogeyman.”