Uncomfortable in our seats

VANESSA REDGRAVE describes it as the “blacklisting of a dead girl and her diaries.” Harold Pinter says it’s nothing less than the “suppression of dissent and truth.” And Tony Kushner professes to be “baffled” by the attempts to justify what has been seen as egregious self-censorship.

The hullabaloo concerns New York Theatre Workshop’s postponement of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” the play based on e-mails and letters of the 23-year-old American student who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting the leveling of Palestinian homes on the Gaza Strip.

It’s no surprise that the incident has provoked widespread condemnation from left-leaning critics and artists in the U.S. and abroad. But now that we’re all beginning to catch our breaths (and recover our voices), the time has come to more calmly reflect on our theater’s willingness to steer the public dialogue in directions that it may otherwise be reluctant to venture in.

How daringly political will we allow our stages to become? The question urges us to move beyond the self-congratulatory platitudes and catchphrases that we who love this art form all too readily dispense. It comes down to something more difficult: Can we envision (and, more to the point, finance) a theater that embraces what the great midcentury Italian critic Nicola Chiaromonte called its inherent and potentially liberating “unpopularity”?

In an age in which the value of “balance” -- meaning equal time for opposing perspectives no matter their intellectual worth -- has rendered the network news impotent, playwrights and performance artists with committed viewpoints are finding audiences who appreciate their piercing advocacy. While none are misguided enough to have large-scale commercial ambitions, they have found producers who recognize that though theater may have a peripheral status in the larger culture it nonetheless provides an influential forum that can enrich the broader conversation in areas in which it is deficient.

The passion to present “My Name is Rachel Corrie” stems in part from a frustration with the media’s narrowly focused portrayal of Palestinians as suicide bombers.

For those not keeping up with one of the more heavily blogged theater stories in recent memory (and www.playgoer.blogspot.comis a good place to catch up), the crux of the controversy involves New York Theatre Workshop artistic director James Nicola’s admission that he was delaying the production for fear of the way the play’s critical perspective on Israeli policies might be received in the wake of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s severe stroke and Hamas’ unexpected victory in the Palestinian elections.

Nicola’s request for more time to “contextualize” the production through carefully planned post-show discussions and other such educational offerings was seen by many as uncharacteristic cowardice from a man who has created one of the most influentially adventurous theaters off-Broadway.

The Royal Court, the storied London theater company that commissioned the play, went public with its dismay at New York Theatre Workshop’s handling of the matter and subsequently pulled the rights. Seattle Rep, which announced it will produce the play in March, is the only American theater to commit to a full-scale production.

Meanwhile, a retooled version of the Royal Court premiere has moved to the West End, where it has received respectful though by no means earth-shattering reviews. Matt Wolf, writing in the New York Times, said “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” “remains an impassioned eulogy that isn’t quite the same thing as a play.” No one, in short, seems to be making a case for the work on aesthetic grounds.

Nevertheless, the play marks a watershed moment in American political theater. It’s a symbolic fight -- not even the co-creators, Alan Rickman (who’s also the director) and Guardian features editor Katharine Viner, are likely to make the claim that their drama is going to have a significant effect on Middle East relations -- or for that matter find a lasting place in the repertory. But at a time when our stages are becoming increasingly political, the play is asking us to put our money where our sanctimony is.

For all our righteous claims about theater’s ability to tackle taboos, flout received ideas and deepen debate, what are we to make of the news that certain hot-button issues may be too hot to present without an arsenal of mediating outreach measures to soften the blow for ticked-off donors and subscribers?

That the offending subject matter deals with the Palestinian cause seems somehow fitting. Fueling the indignation is the sense that New York Theatre Workshop’s delay in producing the Rachel Corrie play is of a piece with America’s pro-Israel stand -- and perceived closed-mindedness when it comes to hearing the other side of the story.

All of this, set against reports that Nicola had consulted with a Jewish board member and a close friend who questioned the play’s message, was enough to raise suspicion over the way even a forward-thinking institution such as New York Theatre Workshop may, if not lose sight of its higher artistic mandate, dither in the face of vague pressures.

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It might as well be now

IT’S a ripe time to have this discussion. Since Sept. 11 our stages have been gravitating toward more difficult issues, and it’s only a matter of time before producers and artistic directors confront more such “Rachel Corries.”

Hollywood is already feeling the heat, with studio heads being told by commentators on the right that box office declines are a direct consequence of out-of-touch message flicks that wear their bleeding hearts on their sleeves. Of course, there are other reasons for plummeting numbers (DVDs and pay-per-view perhaps?), but everyone knows that the best way to quell progressive vision is to equate it with financial suicide.

Still, some movies have been setting a brave example. In addition to the dashing lead of George Clooney and the rest of this year’s Oscar-contending politicos, we’ve been enjoying a renaissance in documentary filmmaking that has sharpened our sensibility for such fact-based stage dramas as “The Exonerated” and “Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom,” which make up in courage and conviction what they lack in sophisticated artistry.

This isn’t to denigrate the theater of testimony’s own rich tradition. The work of Anna Deavere Smith (“Fires in the Mirror” and “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” in particular) and Emily Mann (most notably her elegantly structured “Still Life”) demonstrate the remarkable strength and sweep of the form.

But there’s no denying that much of this work of late has made for rather pedestrian theater. “Guantanamo” is important not because it’s memorable art but because it brings wider attention to the plight of human beings deemed undeserving of the judicial protections on which our democracy was founded. “The Exonerated” may lack the gripping dramatic complexity of Tim Robbins’ “Dead Man Walking,” but it bears crucial witness to the fallibility of our criminal justice system and to the individuals victimized by the inevitable errors.

Though not everyone was taken with the writing and acting of Iraqi American Heather Raffo’s solo performance piece “Nine Parts of Desire,” the work (presented by the Geffen last fall) strove to put a human face on the female population of a country we understand largely through grim statistics, nefarious buzzwords and photographed chaos.

David Hare’s “Stuff Happens,” stirringly directed by Gordon Davidson last summer at the Mark Taper Forum, represents one of the more compelling theatrical forays into disastrous current events. The play, which was just updated for a new production at the New York Public Theater, corrals the Bush and Blair administrations into a penetrating dramatization of the lead-up to this latest Iraq invasion. And instead of skewing the material toward a predictable bias, Hare finds in Colin Powell a protagonist who can movingly embody the diplomatic tragedy that paves the road to any war.

In addition to these more topical offerings, there has been a rise in old-school engagement, which, rather than pursuing direct confrontation with historical headlines, seeks to cultivate greater complexity in the framing of social problems. For example, Bertolt Brecht, the foremost 20th century political writer, seems to be making a comeback in New York. “The Threepenny Opera” has just opened on Broadway, in a production featuring Alan Cumming and that lovable ‘80s pop-wacko Cyndi Lauper, while Meryl Streep stars in Kushner’s new adaptation of “Mother Courage and Her Children” this summer in Central Park.

Brecht’s vision of theater as an incitement to critical thought rather than uncritical emotion has never really caught on in America, where easy sentiment is a prerequisite for solvency. Yet his works, beyond their underestimated capacity to entertain, have inspired new ways of understanding the societal structures limiting our possibilities.

The Geffen’s current season is devoted to American masters (Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, Arthur Miller and Sam Shepard), all of whom demonstrate unique styles of public-mindedness. Miller’s 1947 breakthrough play, “All My Sons,” which opens Wednesday, plunges into what the critic Harold Clurman describes as the contemporary battle between “a memory of morality and the pressure of ‘practicality’ ” -- a line that speaks equally well to the dilemma artistic directors are facing.

And Shepard, who’s not normally thought to be overly concerned with political matters, follows in June with “God of Hell,” his most explicit commentary on the increasingly autocratic tendencies of government today. An allegory about the modern abuses of power, the play was hurried into production in New York before the last presidential election, and it will be interesting to see how it resonates now as Bush’s approval ratings continue to wilt.

These Geffen offerings carry the cachet of canonical playwrights, which makes it harder to simply dismiss their visions as ideological hectoring. Their challenge isn’t so much drawing an audience as finding the right director and actors to animate the human dimension of each work.

Political theater at its most dangerous, after all, has less to do with the presentation of revolutionary ideas than with the depiction of characters in the grip of seemingly insoluble conflicts. If rational argument or a new way of thinking were enough, the stalemate would cease to exist and so too would the drama.

Yes, it’s true, as Robbins’ production of “1984” at the Actors’ Gang reminds, that autonomous thought is the enemy of all who would curtail our freedom. But theater’s ability to put us into a more intimate relationship with our supposed enemies is an even more radical proposition.

Why else would there be such backsliding about producing a drama about a young woman’s diaries and e-mails? Sympathy for an American casualty of the Palestinian cause won’t change foreign policy, but it will open minds and hearts to a situation that’s less black and white than many have been told.

The audience for such theater may not be of Broadway proportions, but leaders in the field such as Nicola need to have faith in the potentially large impact of producing small and dangerously.

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Contact McNulty, The Times’ theater critic, at calendar.letters@latimes.com.