Furor Over New Play, Its Cancellation

Athol Fugard has withdrawn a play in protest, the Dramatists Guild is calling an emergency meeting of its council to issue a statement, and other playwrights and theater producers spoke out Wednesday in the escalating controversy surrounding the cancellation at the Manhattan Theatre Club of Terrence McNally’s new play, “Corpus Christi,” which is reported to be about a Jesus Christ-like figure who has sex with his apostles.

The furor began late last Thursday when the Manhattan Theatre Club, a nonprofit organization that has premiered many of McNally’s previous works, including the Tony-winning “Love! Valour! Compassion!,” announced in a terse fax distributed by its publicists that it was canceling the upcoming production of “Corpus Christi,” scheduled for next season, in view of violent threats from outraged religious groups. “Because of security problems that have arisen around the production of this play and related concerns, MTC is now unable to mount this production responsibly,” the fax stated.

Protests against the production first arose following a reading of the play last month at the midtown off-Broadway theater. The New York Post, citing unnamed sources, claimed the drama had “a gay Jesus” as its protagonist, which spurred the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights to launch a letter-writing campaign to stop the production. (The group, which also led the protest against the ABC series “Nothing Sacred,” has reportedly disavowed any violence but expressed deep satisfaction at the cancellation.) At first, Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove, who head the Manhattan Theatre Club, publicly stated that they intended to proceed with the play. But then, reportedly in the face of more threats, they decided that they felt that by proceeding they might endanger the lives of their audiences or creative personnel. Neither Meadow nor Grove could be reached for comment Wednesday.

“This became an issue of safety, not censorship,” Meadow told the New York Times on Tuesday, adding that she had reported the threats to the police, some of which had called for the burning down of the theater and the “extermination” of homosexuals, Jews and McNally.

The cancellation has been met with disgust and dismay by many in the New York theater community. McNally--whose most celebrated hits include “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” “Master Class” and the librettos for the musicals “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “Ragtime”--issued a statement through his agent, Gilbert Parker, saying that he “greatly regrets” that the theater has decided not to go forward with the production and that he hopes “audiences will have the opportunity to see the play in another venue.” Friends of the playwright described him as emphatically opposed to the theater’s actions.

Fugard, the lauded South African playwright whose work has also previously been produced by the theater, withdrew permission for an upcoming production of his latest play, “The Captain’s Tiger,” through a statement to the theater, expressing that he was doing this “as the strongest possible protest.”

Fugard also stated that he was “shocked and deeply disturbed” by the cancellation. “In yielding to the blackmail and threats of the Catholic League, the theater management has compromised one of the basic freedoms of democracy--the freedom of speech--and they have done it by censoring themselves and collaborating in the attempt to silence Mr. McNally.”

While other producers and playwrights joined in the chorus of disapproval, Peter Stone, president of the Dramatists Guild and a distinguished playwright, cautioned that the situation is complicated by the threats of violence.

“Clearly, the record of the guild on censorship of any kind is very strong,” Stone said. “But nobody should take the threats of violence lightly, and a theater has to be concerned for the safety of its audience. On the other hand, there is a very strong argument to be made if this sort of threat is pandered to. It could open the door to a great deal more threats, seriously intended or not. A very serious amount of discussion and reflection has to take place.”

Stone said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the Dramatists Guild Council will meet this week and issue a strong statement about the situation, possibly early next week. McNally is vice president of the organization, making it likely that the group will strongly support the playwright’s position and condemn the action in the strongest possible terms.

Among the New York theater community, many fear the situation could have a chilling effect on future productions with controversial subjects, particularly since Trans World Airlines, a financial supporter of the Manhattan Theatre Club, reportedly notified the theater that it planned to withdraw support of the production. Meadow told the New York Times that TWA contributed less than $25,000 of the theater’s $25-million annual budget, she said.

“The tragedy is that this is an unfinished play--that’s why they were having a reading in the first place--that will never get a chance to be finished without the distortions of this incident,” said Liz McCann, a Broadway producer who suggested that the play would find new takers--if only to take advantage of the controversy.

“It’s ludicrous that this has all taken place in a vacuum. Nobody I know has even seen or read the play. Is it any good?”