Director talks about how censorship gives single person too much power

Issue came up with OCHS Drama Guild production

OCEAN CITY – One person can wield an inordinate amount of censorship power.

Robert LeMaire, theater director for the Ocean City High School Drama Guild productions, brought that concern to the Ocean City Board of Education April 27.

Speaking during public comment, LeMaire was addressing a situation he’d like to keep from happening in the future as the district builds on its arts program.

During opening night of the spring Drama Guild production of “The Drowsy Chaperone,” there were about 300 people attending, but one person complained about two words in the script, “lesbian” and “pornography.”

LeMaire said he met with the administration team and they mutually agreed to remove the word “pornography” from the script. “It wasn’t used in a sexual way. It was kind of an off-hand joke,” he said, “but that censorship from one person really bothered me.” 

“If we’re going to grow an arts program here we’re going to have to allow art to be what art is,” he told the board. “Art is about challenging norms, laughing at things that maybe aren’t always funny, but can be a little uncomfortable. We’re trying to grow a program here.”

He said the argument for censoring the words was because it didn’t seem appropriate in a high school play and just using the terminology implied, wrongly, that the district was promoting those words. Standing at a podium in the OCHS library, where the board meeting was taking place, he pointed out different displays in the library, including ones for the Holocaust and genocide. It is obvious the district is not promoting those as ideas, he said, but those words are prominent.

He added that prostitution is in the Bible, but  “I don’t think the Bible is promoting prostitution. I don’t think we need to rip those pages out.”

“Moving forward, the district should back up and support our students and choices that they are making and the performances that we do,” LeMaire said. 

“A single person’s comments should not be the trigger to edit something from a whole show. It gives one person a lot of power,” he said after the meeting.

LeMaire believes there should be context when considering a censorship issue and that if there is a concern they should talk about it beforehand, but unfortunately the issue only comes up as a play is being performed.

He said in the process of picking musicals, he usually works with a team of people, including the band and choir directors, and he chooses the other plays, but they then go to the administration for approval. He noted there are also versions of plays made for high schools.

That was the case when the Drama Guild performed “Chicago” during the COVID-19 pandemic. In that one the language is cleaned up. “If there is a show on the edge, I go with the high school edition and it is pretty much good to go,” he said. LeMaire has directed 13 productions at OCHS. Although he works in IT for the district, he has a theater background, including work for the East Lynne Theatre Company in Cape May where he conducts children’s workshops.

He said part of building the arts program at the high school is about more than the students directly involved in productions, that it also is about getting other students to understand and appreciate art and context.

“Students who have never sat in on a live performance don’t know how to behave,” he said. “They don’t have those skills. They just hear some words and the brain goes in a difference direction. Adults will hear the rest of the scene” for the context, he explained.

“Considering (“The Drowsy Chaperone”) was full of about 6,000 innuendos, it’s funny that that’s the thing they picked” to censor, LeMaire said.

He believes the administration handled the situation well and that he agreed with the decision to cut the word “pornography.” The administration did not censor “lesbian.”

He also said he takes into account his own actors.

“The biggest stakeholders in the play are students. If there are things they are not comfortable with – and there were some things in this play – there was the reference to the word ‘Negro’ and the student wasn’t comfortable with it. I said, ‘Fine. Just replace it with ‘friend.’’ 

“When there are things they are not comfortable with, we work through it and make changes where necessary,” he said.

He pointed out that he had lesbians in the production and they did not take offense at the word being used in the script.

One other censorship issue in the past

LeMaire said a few years ago the administration requested a last-minute edit of a production. 

“There was an off-stage suicide and there was a concern it would cause problems,” he said. “For that decision, I disagreed.”

He said he was very sensitive about the topic because he had gone through a difficult time with one of his children (now adults) battling depression. 

“If it was something I felt was less than educational, I would have cut it. That’s probably the only other time (censorship) happened. I do understand where the administration was coming from,” he said, noting the point of the scene was that everyone felt they should have done more and been there for the person who died. “I think there was a message there that would have been helpful,” he said.

Homophobic slur

LeMaire also wanted the board to know that during an in-school performance of the spring play, a student in the audience yelled out a homophobic slur at one of the actors.

It was upsetting to the student and to him, he said.  “We’re trying to build a more positive environment” and that doesn’t help.

That is another reason why getting the student body more acclimated to art is important, LeMaire told board members.

In his comments, he said he supported the administration in the latest case, but noted again how that gives one person a lot of power to limit what everyone sees and hears.

“I hope it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff