Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Yale backs off ban on weapons in plays; audience will be notified
Boston.com: "A week after a Yale University official banned prop weapons from school plays in response to the Virginia Tech killings, the Ivy League school has reversed course and said audiences will be notified in advance of the use of fake guns, swords and knives."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I can understand the frustration the director is going through. It DOES limits the artistic choices and creativity that needs to be encouraged not limited by the audience. I doubt the audience would be offended or be shocked by the weapons on stage, but I also understand why the school has to be extra-careful about it, too, especially schools like Yale.
I'm glad to see that they lifted the restriction of the original ban, yet the fact that they have to apply for the usage of props is still fairly ridiculous. I did really enjoy that some of the compensation done for the lack of the props was actually to change lines to make fun of the ban. Hopefully, the administration will come to their senses and remove the ban all together.
Thats a much better approach. It always bothers me when people overreact to events Granted, it's a serious situation, but to ban replica weapons from a play, thats just ridiculous.
I wonder how CMU will respond, if at all, and how this production will affect ours next year.
I don't see the issue as "censoring" the arts, simply limiting. It was unfortunate, especially for the director who found out hours before her production, that weapons weren't allowed. So many plays rely on scenes with weapons. How would Juliet kill herself without a dagger? The reasoning behind the initial ban was valid, but quite irrational. It is good that the ban has been lifted.
I'm really happy that the ban was lifted. Taking weapons, or cigarettes, or certain words (do we see a pattern here) out of theatre isn't going to change the fact that they still exist and that they are a part of our lives as Americans. We can't just try to censor art and pretend like life is so much better.
I remember at my high school we had a limitation on weapons. In a production of of mice and men, in the part where George shoots Lennie, our principle suggested many ridiculous things about not using a weapon. Taking it off stage or using something representational; anyways we started to make jokes about it and for our skit that year we did a re-enactment of the situation and blew it out of proportion in a funny way saying couldn't u just use your finger to pretend to shoot a gun...ANYWAYS...I am glad that they lifted the restriction on the original ban.
Post a Comment