College Play’s Nudity Exposes Art Concerns

Two nude actors--a man and woman standing in a setting that resembled a stark Garden of Eden--were dimly lit, barely visible on the Moorpark College stage.

The nude scene in “Equus”--a 1974 psychodrama exploring issues of passion, guilt and religion--stirred no controversy over the play’s monthlong run, which ended March 14. The only complaint director Les Wieder heard from audience members was about actors smoking cigarettes.

But one college trustee says the play raises a question he may bring to the Ventura County Community College District board at a future meeting: What limits should be placed on art produced at a taxpayer-supported institution?

Trustee Norm Nagel said he expressed concerns before the play began that the nude scene was inappropriate for college theater and suggested the actors wear body stockings.

While tasteful handling of the scene allayed those worries, “my concern is how far should we take our visual arts in a community setting where public taxpayer money is spent?” he said. “Does anything go? Or are there limits? I don’t think that issue is resolved.”

Nagel said he may introduce the idea of holding public meetings to discuss whether there should be any limits to art that taxpayers fund.

Many faculty members, however, said they would prefer to let artists make their own choices and then advise their audiences what to expect. Some said what is really needed is more education about art.

Others worried that involvement in art by too many people would result in bland works that don’t provoke thought.

“Art is a special entity in the world and it always has been,” said James Jarvaise, chairman of Oxnard College’s arts and communication department. “These things are initiated by highly intelligent and creative people,” he said. To allow the public to dictate what they want or will tolerate in a work of art, “that’s the end of everything,” Jarvaise said.

Whether art should be funded by taxpayer money has long been a topic of debate on a national level. Every year, for example, Congress wrestles with it in deciding a budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Critics of the endowment won a temporary victory in 1990 with a law requiring the agency to consider “decency and respect” when evaluating grants for artists. The law was overturned by a federal appeals court in 1996.

In Ventura County’s community colleges, however, that debate has not been held as it should, Nagel said.

In the case of a work of art that most people would find offensive, for example, “are you obligated to display that art?” Nagel asked. “What are the obligations to our students, faculty and to the taxpayers?”

For Debra McKillop, curator of Ventura Community College’s two art galleries, that is a difficult question to answer.

“That’s a philosophical question and it almost has to go piece by piece and place by place. It’s a tough one,” McKillop said. But she adds that when outsiders get involved in the artistic process, “the original intent is almost always diminished.”

For instance, she points to the copper curtain, a sculpture attached to one wall of the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks. The architect had envisioned beautiful strips of fluttering copper, but changes by the city turned it into the butt of jokes by some who refer to it as the “refrigerator’s backside.”

What needs to happen is more education about art, McKillop said.

“I think that in general, the more people study art, the more lenient, the more understanding they become,” McKillop said.

The play that has raised the debate for the community colleges, “Equus,” ran at Moorpark College’s Performing Arts Center. The Tony Award-winning drama written by Peter Shaffer hit Broadway in 1974 and examines why a teenage stable boy who worships horses one night blinds five of them. The nude scene occurs at a point in the play where the boy learns his passion for horses has ruled out sex with women.

Audiences were warned with notices taped up at the ticket office and on the theater doors that “Equus” is for adults and includes nudity.

“If you give people notice about what the content is, they can figure out for themselves” whether to attend, director Wieder said. “They’ve been doing it in movies and records . . . if they don’t like it they don’t attend.”

Matt Ferrill, a 20-year-old cast member, said the question of limits on taxpayer-funded art is important, but equally important is that the people who want to talk about the art be knowledgeable about it.

And the way Ferrill sees it, there is a danger that public comment about what they want could turn a piece into something meaningless.

Many productions, Ferrill said, seek to “push the envelope.”

“The purpose of the production is to touch and move them and not just give them what they want or what they expect,” Ferrill said.

Jarvaise, who also runs the art gallery at Oxnard College, recalled what happened during a student exhibit when “really antagonistic people” created a ruckus during a showing because they didn’t like the nude drawings.

“I told them to leave because they were causing a disturbance and they weren’t knowledgeable about the talent involved in the drawing,” he said.

“Those people interested should participate,” Jarvaise said. “If they don’t like it they should simply remove themselves or not go in again or attempt to understand what is going on.”