Artistic freedom in our theaters is fading as a result of fear and self-censorship

By: Kate Maltby / The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

Last month, Manchester's Royal Exchange Theater canceled the show A Midsummer Night's Dream. Rehearsals had begun and the dress rehearsal, delayed by several injuries, was ready.

The play’s director, Stef O’Driscoll, made a public statement. Her vision of Shakespeare’s magical world was built on Manchester’s drum’n’bass music scene, but the Royal Exchange cancelled the show after it included a rap song by a “politically conscious transgender person” that included the phrases “freedom for Palestine” and “trans rights.” The mention of Palestine was the sticking point. According to O’Driscoll, the theatre had censored it in a performance that she said was “not an isolated incident, but reflective of a growing trend of censorship and fear-based decisions in the arts.” Online theatre communities reacted. The Equity Association denounced “the growing culture of censorship created by funders and pressure groups.” However, several members of staff told me a different story. Everyone agreed that the show had been delayed. One member of the troupe described the technical rehearsals as “chaos.” With only a few days to complete the show, O’Driscoll introduced not only rapping, but also interactive games for the audience and a question-and-answer exercise that would galvanize the audience to join in the cry of “freedom for Palestine.”

Manchester is not only home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the UK, but also to the British relatives of the Israeli Jewish hostages taken by Hamas on October 7. The performance coincided with the first anniversary of that event - the greatest loss of Jewish life since 1945. The theatre, faced with concerns that Jewish audience members might be offended by the chants of "freedom for Palestine", asked O'Driscoll to remove the rap part. She refused.

However, the theatre community showed sympathy for O'Driscoll, and her story of censorship resonated strongly. Many had their own stories of Palestinian voices reportedly being censored. For example, at the Chickenshed Theatre, a short play called Conversation with father tim was mysteriously removed from the program at a new authors' festival, with press representatives instructing critics to remove the text from their earlier reports. The "Barbican" theater was accused of censorship after it refused to host a talk with the title Shoah after Gaza - the art center claimed that the event was incorrectly announced.

It is now a year since the conflict returned to Gaza and southern Israel. The British theatre scene, with its extraordinary power, has become entangled in trying to decide who should and should not be put on stage. As vice-chair of the Index on Censorship and outgoing chair of the Critics' Circle, I have heard more complaints than ever about censorship in the arts in Britain.

However, much of this backlash has been about Jewish voices being censored. Not Israeli voices, but Jewish voices. Theaters have postponed previously scheduled performances about the Holocaust, arguing that they could pose a security threat. A stand-up comedy show about kosher food was pulled because the timing was not appropriate "on a global scale." The team behind the show Fiddler on the Roof, which played at Regent's Park this summer, admitted it was considering pulling the show after October 7. There were no strong reactions from theater activists for these stories.

This week, Patrick Marber will present his new play, a collaboration with writer Nathan Englander, What do we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank?, at the little-known Marylebone Theatre, an unusual location for a prominent playwright. The leading theatre to which he had offered the play had told him that the board was concerned that it might incite protests. Marber told me that he had rewritten the play to reflect Jewish life after October 7. “Isn’t the theatre a place where we talk about things that are difficult, complicated and intricate?” he asked. Yes, was the answer, “but the board doesn’t want it to be debated in this particular location at this particular time.”

Whatever happened in Manchester, O'Driscoll's experience has something in common with Marber's. In big theatres, risk management decisions are made by boards and managers, not by artists. After the pandemic, theatres' coffers are empty, so risk appetite is at an all-time low.

Until August, Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre was run by an interim "executive director" after artistic directors Roy Alexander Weise and Bryony Shanahan left in 2023 following the chaotic cancellation of another show - Red velvet, a completely reaction-free show. The theater had received emergency coronavirus loans and grants worth £2.85m [€3.4m] in October 2020, most of which had to be repaid.

Plays with Jewish or Arab themes are also victims of a new code in the theatrical world: characters from a minority must be played by members of that minority. Two of the best recent shows in London, Fiddler on the Roof and Here in America in the "Orange Tree" theater, they used stars brought from Israel and America, respectively. On the other hand, British actors of Arab descent are involved in fierce debates over which Arab groups should voice the Palestinian characters. Is this a breakthrough, or just a way to add more obstacles to the telling of these stories?

Here in America examines playwright Arthur Miller's friendship with Elia Kazan, the film director who was expelled from Hollywood after denouncing colleagues as communists. The play's strength lies in its careful depiction of the right and the left, both of which have been trying to exclude each other since the 50s. But this sense of rival groups ready to denounce each other also lies behind the current fear of theaters dealing with anything related to Israel, Palestine, Muslims or Jews.

The Equity Association, which supported O'Driscoll against "censorship", condemned a production of Richard III because the lead actor was not visibly disabled. It won support from the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement - which has on several occasions protested against allowing Israeli artists to perform at Edinburgh theatre festivals.

The association "Equity", which supported O'Driscoll against "censorship", condemned a production of Richard III because the main actor was not visibly disabled. It gained support from the Palestinian movement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) - which has on several occasions protested against allowing Israeli artists to perform at Edinburgh theatre festivals.

Meanwhile, pro-Israel groups in the UK are taking inspiration from America, where an organized lobby has long been working to ban acts such as Death of Klinghofer apo My name is Rejçël Kori. All these groups should reflect how absolute their commitment to freedom of expression is.

It's not all dark. The Royal Court Theatre, which has previously failed in this matter, has succeeded with Mark Rosenblatt's show, giant, which cleverly explores the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism through the character of Roald Dahl. It's a marriage between art and courage, but it took six years to develop. The flashpoints of the culture wars erupt in theaters that are already underfunded, strained and at the breaking point. To have these conversations fairly, theater not only needs "freedom of speech," but funding, care, and the security to take risks. /Telegraph/