Lately, two local theatre companies have been in the news for putting things together that we don’t normally think go together. Hint: it’s called the creative process.
At Actor’s Express, you can catch the world premiere of Love Jerry, a musical about child abuse. Despite “praise from experts on child-abuse prevention,” suburban mothers are protesting.
At The Center for Puppetry Arts, you can catch the world premiere of Anne Frank: Within and Without, a play that uses puppets to tell the story of Anne Frank’s writings. The show has drawn national attention to the center for the innovative way they are telling her story.
In tribute to these two plays, when I produced this week’s Atlanta Performs Podcast, I decided the first Stage Stories segment should be taken from my interview with Palmer Wells from Theatre in the Square. In that segment, he told some of his side of the story on the infamous 1993 controversy where a play featuring a gay character attracted worldwide attention and made Cobb County the laughingstock of the nation. Out of that controversy, Theatre in the Square came out stronger, and Gordon Wysong — the Cobb Commissioner who introduced the anti-gay resolution — was subsequently defeated in the next election by Sam Olens.
I’ve commented before that the idea of “political correctness” can itself be offensive. And there’s no limit to how far that idea can go, whether conservatives or liberals take offense at the appearance of being anti-family, racist, sexist, or uncivilized in some other sort of way. Even I am occassionaly guilty of taking offense at things I probably shouldn’t be. The irony here is that political correctness knows no boundaries: conservatives, liberals, moderates, and even fountainheads — former ’60s activists-turned-neocon — tend to take offense at things they don’t understand or don’t want to understand.
The current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review highlights “When P.C. is B.S.”
“Why are Asian people quiet? Is it okay to go ‘commando’? Why do black men look good in purple suits, but white men look like dorks?” These politically incorrect questions might occur to some, but few would think to vocalize them, let alone make them the basis of a column — unless of course you’re Phillip Milano of the Florida Times-Union and your column is called “Dare to Ask.”
Today, Western society is at a crossroads. The defining moment for my generation will not be September 11… unless we want it to be, much like Karl Rove wants to define my generation that way.
If we are truly as creative as Richard Florida says we are becoming, Gordon Wysong’s defeat will be a tacitly defining moment for my generation. We can either define ourselves as never secure from terrorism (Rove’s strategy), or we can dare to ask the questions and find the answers that are required to defeat the political correctness that holds us back (Olens’ victory).
