Panelists discuss banned play

La Grande High School student Sara Densmore, right, speaks during a panel discussion about the play “Picasso at the Lapin Agile’’ Sunday afternoon. Densmore has a lead role in the play. Also shown, left to right, are April Curtis, an EOU speech and theater professor; La Grande Mayor Colleen Johnson, an EOU economics professor who moderated the panel discussion and Clay Andrew, pastor of the United Methodist Church. The Observer/DICK MASON

Still, it is not too early to reflect on the Steve Martin play and the controversy it sparked in La Grande.

The conflict was brought into focus during a panel discussion Sunday afternoon. The discussion followed a matinee performance of “Picasso’’ by La Grande High School students at EOU’s McKenzie Theatre.

“The controversy came as a shock to all of us,’’ Densmore said. “We had all read it’’ and didn’t have a problem with it.

Densmore instead saw the play’s educational merit, noting that it taught her the difference between genius and talent and about different forms of art.

The play’s educational merits were overshadowed by its adult content in the minds of some. A La Grande parent was so upset that she submitted a written complaint to the La Grande School District, one accompanied by a petition with 137 signatures.

La Grande Superintendent Larry Glaze then banned the play. Glaze’s decision was appealed, but the school board upheld the superintendent’s decision at a Feb. 25 meeting attended by about 300.

The play was then moved to EOU for a three-performance run, which ends with a performance at 8 tonight. The work is being performed with virtually all of Martin’s adult content and language intact. One swear word is being omitted with Martin’s permission. Kevin Cahill, the play’s director, decided to omit the word after Martin suggested it during a phone conversation.

Panelist April Curtis, a theater and speech professor at EOU, applauded the fact that the script was essentially unchanged.

“Editing a play (without a playwright’s permission) is not evil, it is illegal,’’ Curtis said.

She added that a script is an artwork and to sanitize or change it in any way is also “against the playwright’s intention.’’

“You cannot make a play something it is not,’’ Curtis said. “A written script is a piece of art and it should not be touched, period.’’

Curtis believes “Picasso at the Lapin Agile’s” adult content might have seemed stronger on the printed page than on stage.

“Plays are not meant to be read, they are meant to be seen and heard,’’ she said. “It (a play) is an entity which is beautiful and a piece of art in its entirety. It is a piece of art when someone sees and hears it.’’

Curtis is giving “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” a rave review.

“The acting is incredible,’’ she said.

A significant portion of Sunday’s panel discussion focused on the Feb. 25 La Grande School Board meeting.

Curtis said she was struck by the intensity of the meeting.

“People were talking a lot but nobody was listening,’’ Curtis said.

She said she hopes the people at the meeting someday open up to both points of view and say to themselves, “Wow, I never thought of it that way.’’

Densmore said that she and other students in the “Picasso’’ production could not get their voices heard.

“We felt left out of the decision. We felt we could not do anything to support the play at the meeting,’’ Densmore said.

People sensed a feeling of entrenched views at the meeting, one that people have continued to have after the meeting.

“It became an ‘us versus them’ situation,’’ said panelist Andrew Clay, pastor of the United Methodist Church, who was not at the Feb. 25 meeting.

Clay said there has been a feeling on both sides of, “If we don’t stand up for what is right someone on the other side will. We have the corner on truth. We will tell others what is right and wrong.’’

The banned play was moved to Eastern with help from the EOU Student Democrats, which sponsored the production. The move caught the attention of Martin, the well known actor and comedian, who helped cover the cost of the production.

Martin wrote “Picasso at the Lapin Agile’’ in 1993. The play is about a meeting between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein in 1904 just before both created their greatest works. Picasso and Einstein meet in a bar in France.

Opponents of the production argued that the play promotes teenage drinking because the entire production is set in a bar. Densmore said she finds this perplexing since the only people shown drinking are those portraying adults.

Sunday’s panel discussion was sponsored by the EOU Student Democrats club, La Grande’s Cook Memorial Library and the Oregon Council for the Humanities. Colleen Johnson, an EOU economics professor and mayor of the city of La Grande, served as the panel’s moderator.

Nobody on the panel or in the audience spoke out against the play during Sunday’s forum.

The play drew almost a full house Saturday night and close to 300 Sunday afternoon. Cahill said plays at LHS normally draw 75 to 100 people.

The controversy surrounding the play undoubtedly is boosting attendance, said Richie Scott, a member of the cast of “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” who spoke as an audience member during the forum.

“Thank you everyone who was for or against us. If you were against us you helped us out too,’’ he said.

EOU students were represented on the panel by James Williams, who is president of Eastern’s Black Student Union and is EOU’s student body president-elect for 2009-10. Williams praised the people who came forward to get the play produced when it was in jeopardy.

“It is important for people to come together and do what they believe is right,’’ Williams said.