Censors never learn
6:10 PM 1/06/04

Would-be censors never learn. The more they try to suppress a work of art or literature, the more interest they create in the target of their ire. <

This time, they're busily expanding the audience for StageQ's production of "Corpus Christi" scheduled at Madison's Bartell Theatre beginning March 5. <

A Pennsylvania religious group - the portentously named American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property - has orchestrated a campaign against the play, which portrays a Christ-like figure as a gay man. <

The theater has been receiving 50 to 100 notes of protest daily - a total of about 1,000 e-mails and 5,000 postcards so far. Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz says he's received more than 3,000 postcards, all objecting to the portrayal of Jesus as gay. To its credit, Madison's theater community is hardly quaking in this onslaught of copycat scolding. <

The production shouldn't - and won't - be canceled. It's right and proper that opponents voice their distaste for the production, as some who have actually seen it also have done. More than one professional reviewer, for example, has noted that controversy aside, "Corpus Christi" is a disappointing play that fails to match the quality of other work by its four-time Tony-winning playwright, Terrence McNally. <

Amateur reviewers, who will not bother to see the play before lambasting it, are expected to make their views known in a protest outside the theater next month. That's in fine keeping with our local protest tradition, as long as demonstrators don't interfere in the performance or try to prevent people from attending it. <

But as they watch more open-minded folks file through the turnstiles, we wonder if they will recognize the role they played in making the show a success.