Controversial Play to Open in O.C.

“Corpus Christi”--a play that has angered religious conservatives and sparked protests in New York and London by depicting Jesus and his apostles as homosexuals--will receive its West Coast premiere tonight in a tiny storefront theater in downtown Santa Ana. Playgoers will pass a metal detector under the watch of an armed guard. The glass-windowed lobby of the 50-seat Empire Theater will be shuttered with plywood.

The Rude Guerrilla Theater Company, as its name implies, aims to put on plays that are extreme, unorthodox, provocative. And “Corpus Christi,” by four-time Tony Award winner Terrence McNally, has indeed provoked outrage.

Its New York debut last year was attended by bomb threats and large protests, and the show’s current run in London spurred a Muslim cleric to issue a fatwa, or death edict, against McNally for perceived blasphemy because Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet.

Rude Guerrilla’s artistic director, Dave Barton, said that no threats have materialized, but he has conferred with Santa Ana police and is taking precautions against possible violence.

Three of Barton’s friends who have law enforcement backgrounds have volunteered to take turns as armed guards for the 18 performances, which run weekends through Dec. 19, excluding Thanksgiving weekend.

Santa Ana police Lt. Dave Petko, district commander for downtown, said Wednesday that the department has received no word of planned protests. Police will make their usual patrols in the area unless a demonstration develops.

In contrast to the religious outrage, most of the New York critics dismissed “Corpus Christi” as tame, unimaginative and even (in the words of Newsday’s reviewer) “overly pious, overly reverent.”

“Corpus Christi” is in some respects a fairly straightforward retelling of the Gospel. McNally, a gay man of 60 who was raised Roman Catholic in Corpus Christi, Texas, makes the play a plea and a demand for sexually active gays to have an equal claim as Christians.

“This play says ‘God loves you, God understands you, and you are not trash.’ It is unabashedly pro-[gay],”said Barton, a former activist with the gay rights group Act Up.

Outcry From Playwrights

But for many, the idea of a gay, sexually experienced Jesus is offensive. When word leaked about “Corpus Christi” months before it opened in September 1998, the Manhattan Theatre Club, a 299-seat off-Broadway house where many of McNally’s plays have been launched, received bomb threats and dropped the play.

That brought an outcry from leading playwrights and others in the arts. Reversing itself, the theater staged “Corpus Christi” as scheduled, attracting large, nonviolent protests orchestrated mainly by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

The Catholic League apparently will sit out the West Coast premiere.

William Donohue, president of the New York-based organization, which combats artistic and other manifestations of what it sees as anti-Catholic sentiment, said the League accomplished its purpose when “Corpus Christi” failed to make it to Broadway. Productions in small, fringe theaters are inevitable and not worth drawing attention to, Donohue said.

Barton invited Gary Stahler, president of the Catholic League in San Diego--the only chapter on the West Coast--to see Rude Guerrilla’s “Corpus Christi” and join in discussions planned after each Sunday matinee.

Stahler said he wouldn’t have minded seeing and debating the play--which he considers “frankly anti-Catholic, anti-Christian” based on excerpts he has read--but he is ailing and won’t be able to travel.

When “Corpus Christi” opened in London two weeks ago, Roman Catholics protested with a prayer vigil outside the theater. But the stakes were raised by an Islamic court’s fatwa against McNally.

According to British press reports, the edict was issued by the head of an 800-member group called Al-Muhajiroun, or the Defenders of the Messenger Jesus. Sheik Omar Bakri Huhammad, who declared the fatwa, told reporters it was not meant to be carried out by any individual, but could be legally executed only by an Islamic state--and then only if McNally were first arrested on an Islamic nation’s soil.

McNally is saying nothing about the fatwa and is not granting interviews, , a spokesman for the playwright said last week.

In the preface to the published edition of “Corpus Christi,” McNally wrote: “Jesus Christ belongs to all of us because He is all of us. Unfortunately not everyone believes that. . . . They do not understand that a good part of our humanity is expressed through our sexuality.”

A current production of “Corpus Christi” in Denver has generated one night of protest, no violence, and a boost in ticket sales that led to sellouts for the 124-seat house, said Steve Tangedal, executive director of the Theatre on Broadway, the gay- and lesbian-themed company that is staging it.

In Houston, the Little Room Downstairs, which also emphasizes gay and lesbian content, was virtually untouched by controversy during an 11-performance run of “Corpus Christi” that ended last week, said director Richard Laub.

In Santa Ana, “Corpus Christi” will debut in a nonprofessional production with a budget of about $3,000, which includes $250 for a hand-held metal detector and Rude Guerrilla’s standard payment of $5 each per performance for 13 male cast members.

As a member of Act Up, Barton disrupted then-Rep. William E. Dannemeyer’s speech at a 1991 seminar in Anaheim on “Preservation of the Heterosexual Coalition.”

Barton walked to the stage, stood beside Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and read from a Bible while two other protesters unfurled a banner saying, “Pray to End Gay Bashing.” Convicted of disturbing the peace, Barton was fined $100, put on a year’s probation and ordered to stay at least 50 feet away from Dannemeyer and the seminar’s organizer, the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon.

“Having been an old activist myself, I thought, ‘What would I do?’ ” to disrupt a performance of “Corpus Christi,” Barton said.

If a demonstration occurs during the play, he said, the actors will stop, the protesters will be asked to leave and escorted out; police will be called if they refuse or resist.

Will Barton, who considers himself a Christian believer, be disappointed if his attempt at provocative theater fails to draw fire?

He paused and said, “Hmm,” when first asked the question during an interview last week.

“People protest because they don’t think they have a voice, and having been on that end of things, I’m very sympathetic to it. If it’s nonviolent, then they’re welcome,” he said.

But with opening night approaching, he was just hoping for peace and quiet.

“[No protest] would be fine with me. I don’t want it, I don’t need it, it’s a [crummy] way to sell tickets.”

But tickets are, in fact, selling faster than for any previous Rude Guerrilla production, Barton said.

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Times staff writer Elaine Gale contributed to this story.

* ON STAGE TO OUTRAGE

Rude Guerrilla Theater is committed to discomfiting county. B12