All freedoms can be abused. That’s why the term literary license makes sense. A good example is “The Second Coming of Joan of Arc,” a play by Carolyn Gage. She’s not only provided a lesbian twist to the play, she’s taken the occasion to dump on the Catholic Church.
To the question, “Whose God Is It Anyway?”, Gage answers, she’s “the cross-dressing butch with the smart mouth.” This is supposed to be funny. Or moving. Or something like that.
The one-woman play was presented at the University of Connecticut in Stamford on April 18. We took note of the fact that the flyer for the play said, “Carolyn Gage’s presentation on the hidden history of lesbian theatre makes powerful connections between sexual violence, racism and anti-Semitism, the exclusion of women authors from the traditional canon, and the stereotyped roles for actresses.” All of which is a lie.
There is nothing hidden about lesbian theatre, woman authors have never been excluded from the canon, and there are no more stereotyped roles for actresses than there are for actors. But our favorite is the bit about racism and anti-Semitism: a play that bashes Catholicism can hardly have anything to say of any merit about the horrors of bigotry. But Gage just doesn’t get it.
