Neil LaBute’s play about Muhammad was deemed a “clear offense to Muslims” by the director of a downtown performance venue associated with the Catholic church, who canceled an anti-censorship event in which the play was to appear.
Mr. LaBute’s one-person play, which was written for the event, is about an actor asked to perform in an offensive satire. A description posted online reads: “The prophet ‘Mohammed’ stands on a barren stage, recalling the first time he made love to a white woman. Is this reality or a theatrical convention? Where do the lines between ‘satire’ and ‘censorship’ intersect or is nothing sacred when it comes to the theater?”
The venue director said “malign[ing] any faith group … clearly falls outside of our mission to highlight the good, the true, and the beautiful.”
It’s best that you let the muslims themselves dictate how Muhammad should be depicted. Besides, ISIS claimed to have undercover agents world wide, and therefore it’s of our best interest to restrict non-muslims from over depiction of their prophet.
Sigh. Seriously, if you’re going to hire Labute to work on a project you’re pretty much looking at him going after one religion or another. It’s kind of his thing.
I’m willing to bet he was just as surprised (and a little amused) to find himself being asked to write a piece for an environment owned by any church.
“Undercover agent” implies training, infrastructure, and, frankly, competence. The jokers from the Texas shooting had none of those things, which you can tell from their stupid (and completely ineffective) attack.
I bet twenty bucks the most contact those fools had with ISIS was over Twitter; calling them undercover agents is like calling me a muckraker because I retweeted Glenn Greenwald.
“I am honestly not interested in stirring hatred or merely being offensive,” he added. “I wanted my play to provoke real thought and debate and I now feel like that opportunity has been lost.”
