We had a big hit at the end of last season when Pat Carroll played Falstaff in “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Reviews were good, and we played to standing-room only crowds for the entire run. One day, Daniel Fish - now the assistant director at the theater-received a phone call from a woman who worked in Sen. Jesse Helms’s office. She said she had enjoyed the show. Daniel thanked her. Then she said she had one little question. She wanted to know if we, or Shakespeare, had written the word “erection. " Shakespeare, of course, had. (“She does so take on with her men, they mistook their erection.” Act III, Scene 5.)
Certain anxieties are brought to bear in an arts institution when someone calls from Senator Helms’s office. But the most disturbing aspect of the woman’s question is the underlying assumption that Shakespeare wouldn’t have written something … so bawdy. “Erection” should be the least of her worries. Shakespeare’s writings are full of sexual puns, double-entendres and risque encounters. And that makes me particularly fearful of the most recent amendment to the reauthorization of the National Endowment for the Arts. First there was the Helms amendment that presented a grocery list of objections. Then there was the “obscenity clause” that artists had to sign in order to receive funding (this was recently ruled unconstitutional by the courts). The most recent amendment was sponsored by Rep. Pat Williams, Democrat of Montana, and Rep. E. Thomas Coleman, Republican of Missouri, and states that NEA grants must “take into consideration general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public.”
Unfortunately, even though our box-office sales are strong and donations are growing, our survival depends on continued NEA support. And Shakespeare violates many “general standards of decency.” There are flatulence jokes in “Othello” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Go back and read lines 96-100 in Act 1, Scene 1, of “Richard III” with the knowledge that “naught” in Elizabethan times could mean “have illicit sex with.” Here’s another hint about those lines: “secretly, alone” refers to masturbation. Look closely at Malvolio’s lines in Act II, Scene 5, of “Twelfth Night” for a truly crude joke. And did anyone really think that “Whereby hangs a tale [tail]” really only referred to having a story to tell?
Of course, many people are aware of Shakespeare’s crudity (certainly Thomas Bowdler was, when he presented his expurgated version of Shakespeare’s plays in the 19th century-hence the word bowdlerized). Unfortunately, Shakespeare’s offensiveness extends beyond crudity. He depicts the abuse of children in “Titus Andronicus,” where Chiron and Demetrius, the sons of Tamora, are baked into a pie. Othello is called “thick lips” because he’s black. Shylock is “spit upon” because he’s Jewish. Lady Macbeth asks to be unsexed because she’s a woman and women are weak. Richard in “Richard III” blames his evilness on his deformity. Lear is berated for his age in “King Lear.” Shakespeare even writes of that uncomfortable topic, homoeroticism. In the wooing scene in “As You Like It” between Orlando and Rosalind, Orlando courts Rosalind who’s disguised as a man pretending to be Rosalind. What’s particularly telling is that Rosalind takes as her male name Ganymede, the mythological name of the beautiful young boy abducted by Zeus to be his cup bearer.
Of course, I’m being a little facetious. I’ve also oversimplified matters and taken lines out of context. But in my mind, that is exactly what this whole furor over the NEA reauthorization has been: an oversimplification and removal from context. Those (some in our audience) who praise Shakespeare and condemn, say, Robert Mapplethorpe, certainly don’t know Shakespeare. There are aspects to Shakespeare I find offensive. Does that mean his work should not be funded? Of course not. There are certainly aspects to Mapplethorpe’s work that I find disturbing. Does that mean his work should not be funded? No. Admittedly, the two artists’ work is at times confrontational, and that is part of what makes them so exciting. But dwelling only on the confrontational aspects of their work is a distortion and bears little relevance to the whole.
It’s not my intention to expose Shakespeare as a dangerous playwright (though in many ways he is one); nor is it my intention to have Senator Helms picketing our theater. For one thing, we can’t afford to lose our funding. I hope our audiences continue to grow; our work is exhilarating and it should be funded and people should come to see it. I also hope the same people go see controversial artists like Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck and Tim Miller. Their work is stimulating and it should be funded and people should go to see it. In the coming months, I am sure we will hear more of this art debate. The solution is simple: there should be no content restriction whatsoever. Congress can be a windy instrument. And thereby hangs a tale (“by ma a wind instrument that I know” - “Othello”).
