A lady recently called the Austin Rhodes show on WGAC complaining that she took her family to watch a play produced by Harlem High School and had to walk out at intermission because she felt what was being presented was vulgar.
Another caller, who admitted he had not seen the play, chimed in, scolding the Columbia County School System for allowing students to perform a show with sexual content or innuendo that might make others uncomfortable.
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There was also a social media post I ran across that made similar claims and stated that high school kids were being taught to produce simulated pornography on stage.
I paid attention because the content of books in the school libraries has been a contentious issue of late and, of course, there was the entire kerfuffle over the “restaurant” Stay. Tap and Social’s little experiment with an all-ages drag show.
According to the caller to the radio show, the play, “Mean Girls JR.” by Tina Fey, contained specific references to body parts and that a trombone was, in some manner, used to describe an erection.
If this was true, then perhaps the drama instructor did make a big mistake; as a parent, I would have been incensed if I had gone to a teen-acted stage show featuring my kid in the cast or crew where a strip tease was presented.
The thing is though, none of what the woman complained about is in the play.
I read the entire script, and there is nothing objectionable at all in the writing. The storyline has plenty of teen angst and discussions about who might be dating whom, but there is nothing overtly sexual in the script.
I had to chuckle at a line in one song where a misfit girl laments the fact that she is great at math, but afraid to talk to a boy she likes, and the line she sings is, “I have calculust!”
Now that is, to me, clever writing.
When I was in high school, we performed “The Boyfriend.” In that performance, one of our female teachers danced the tango, the real tango replete with a rose, with a male student.
The scene and who was cast to perform it had nothing to do with our production, headed up by the legendary Jo Ann Green, to try and be controversial or titillating. The play called for a tango dance and it just so happened that our art teacher, Ms. Ergle, was a professional dancer and could realistically dance the tango.
Another show I was in, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, is about uncouth hillbilly guys that can’t find wives, so they kidnap a bunch of young women in an attempt to force a marriage; and, in the end, they all get married.
I was also in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in high school. The play is about characters who fall asleep in an enchanted forest, are secretly given love potions by fairies and get into all kinds of insinuated sexual situations that they conveniently forget about the next morning.
William Shakespeare’s 16th Century flowery language can get rather naughty, bawdy and downright salacious at times, if one really pays attention.
I have learned that people who are easily offended tend to look for ways to be offended.
That woman on the radio reminded me of Tipper Gore back in the 1980s, who sat before Congress and insisted the Twisted Sister song “Under the Knife” was about sado-masochistic sex. The lead singer of the band, Dee Snyder, read the lyrics into the Congressional record.
The song was about the rational fear of having to undergo surgery, hence the title.
While I think allowing a drag queen story hour for elementary school kids in a public library is a stupid idea, and I certainly think that books with graphic depictions of sex should not be available for young kids to check out, this pearl clutching has really gone too far.
“Mean Girls JR.” is a play about personal growth and empowerment, and it was absolutely unfair for the students and the faculty involved to have people running their mouths over the airwaves and other media with claims that are provably false.
To give Rhodes credit, as a fellow thespian, he clearly was not buying the woman’s story.
Theater participation teaches young people quite a few life skills, such as responsibility and discipline. A play has just as many people working backstage as those under the lights and it requires precision teamwork.
Virtually every play has a moral that is learned through acting it out.
In Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the men are punished by their older sister-in-law for kidnapping the women and are made to spend the winter in the drafty old barn where they learn to bathe, shave and obtain social graces to properly find a life mate.
We should want our kids to be at rehearsal rather than running the streets, but we can’t expect them to perform material that they cannot relate to. Both Waiting for Godot and The Grapes of Wrath are fine plays for adults but are nothing but a total bore for teenagers.
It should also be remembered that high school kids are post-adolescent young adults. They are not children anymore. They have raging hormones and know, or at least should by that age, what sex is.
I auditioned for my first play because I had a crush on Paula Ficara, and she told me she was auditioning; ironically, I got a part and she didn’t.
I ended up being cast as the father who was angry his daughter would not marry the suitor of his choice.
Call me a liberal, but the sexual tension that exists in the musical “Grease” would not make me uncomfortable if I watched it being performed by teenagers, as the play is about teenagers.
The movie, “Blue Lagoon,” however is quite another matter.
Certainly, situations and themes should be age appropriate and never should cross the line into true vulgarity, but being too puritanical about what is an acceptable teenage produced theater show can lead to unintended consequences.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
