RAMPELL: Censorship alive and well in Maine and NYC

Asbury Park Press 11:25 a.m. EDT October 28, 2014

Protestors attend the Metropolitan Operas season opening on Sept. 22 to protest the Mets decision to premiere the controversial opera Death of Klinghoffer. (Photo: AP )

NEW YORK It is a tale of two cities. Well, one ultraliberal metropolis of 8.4 million, and one teeny, conservative town of 3,340. But both face the same threat: dangerous art.

Here in New York, the threat is a world-renowned opera companys production about terrorism. In Maiden, N.C., the threat is a high school play about love.

Almost, Maine has enjoyed nearly 2,000 school productions since its premiere in 2004. It is, in fact, currently the most frequently produced full-length play in U.S. high schools, edging out even A Midsummer Nights Dream. Set in a fictional town in remotest Maine, the whimsical rom-com features nine interlocking vignettes of romance and heartache, playing on familiar idioms about love. The figurative act of falling in love, for example, is illustrated by actors literally falling down. Its a bit like a better-written, slightly surrealist version of Love Actually.

High school students around the country, including those in Maiden High Schools theater club, are drawn to an appealing combination of slapstick, wit and wholesome schmaltz. School administrators likewise appreciate that the most explicit dialogue in John Carianis PG-rated script is the minced oath Jeezum Crow. Who could object to that? The community leaders of Maiden, it turns out to one vignette in particular.

Remember that scene with the falling-down gag? Theres no sex, or kissing, or even allusions to lust. But the gravity-prone characters are both men, which was incendiary enough to lead the principal to cancel the production, citing sexually explicit overtones and multiple sexual innuendoes.

Suspecting that the gay storyline might be an issue, the students had asked the principal to OK their play choice several weeks earlier. After consulting with the superintendent, he did, on the condition that parents sign permission slips allowing their kids to audition for a play with homosexual characters. Then, after the 16-year-old student-director started rehearsals, word got out to local churches that the show contained gay people. Just a few days after same-sex marriage became legal in the state, the students were told the community isnt ready for this play after all.

They were distraught. Theyd already broken their budget securing the rights, and they worried about the message the principals decision sent to their openly gay classmates. The American Civil Liberties Union offered to help the group fight the decision as happened in 2011, during a similar battle at a Maryland school but the students declined legal help, not wanting to cause more conflict. They still hoped to produce the play, though, so when a former teacher offered to help mount an off-campus production, they agreed. Their Kickstarter page set a goal of $1,000. Less than a week later, they had already raised six times that amount.

Many of the donations, and accompanying petition signatures, have come from sympathizers far from Maiden. On social media and in national news reports, far-flung supporters of the students accuse the town of bigotry, backwardness and intellectual suppression.

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RAMPELL: Censorship alive and well in Maine and NYC