When I sat down to read "The Ultimate Christmas Show: Abridged" by Austin Tichenor and Reed Martin in preparation for marketing the show for the holidays, the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel was being called the country's 9/11. I didn't get much past the first scene before I was calling my Managing Director - have you read this script? Marketed as a three-man holiday variety show where "all faiths are welcome, because we'll believe anything." the premise of the show is that it's supposed to be a multi-cultural event, but a snowstorm keeps all the acts away except the three hosts - two Christians and a "Utilitarian." The original cast was three white men, but the play notes suggest anyone can play the roles.
A variety show put on by three people sounds like a hoot, but when the opening scene reveals that the multi-cultural event was supposed to start off with the Confederate Christmas Carolers singing a version of "White Christmas" that includes anti-semitic and racist lyrics, I found myself cringing and wondering - who is the butt of the joke? In this scene, it appears to be the non-Christian who is "open to all points of view" and throughout the play, this character seems to suggest that an absence of religious faith is an absence of a belief system - rather than atheism and paganism being two completely different ideologies firmly planted in values.
Meanwhile, the audience is expected to laugh at the audacity of the character for inviting racists to the event. Except the play starts off with racist and anti-semitic humor - lines to the effect of "May your friends be light colored hues/ And remember Christ was killed by -- JEWS." In the context of a growing number of anti-semitic messages being projected throughout our communities in San Diego - from a shooting at a Poway synagogue, to anti-semitic flyers on people's cars in East County to defamatory bathroom graffiti at coastal schools - hearing this sung in a theater with the suggestion that racism and anti-semitism are funny and thus harmless - makes me feel complicit to the racism. As for the lines about light-hued friends, there's a multi-billion dollar industry geared towards skin lightening creams. Racism and colorism are prevalent in white, brown, and black communities. Does telling a racist joke and then laughing at it for being racist, diminish the harm of the original sentiments?
As the play went on it included scenes of the two white men arguing over whether Hanukkah or Ramadan was a more fun holiday with oversimplified and brief explanations of each holiday intended for an audience that is assumed to be unfamiliar with either apparently. Ramadan, a time of fasting and deprivation intended to build sympathy for people in need and bring people closer to Allah, is argued to be a good time thanks to all the food when Muslim practitioners break fast in the evening. While the explanation of Hanukkah ignores that it is a remembrance of a miracle born from oppression. The scene undermines the conflict in the Middle East, but ends happily as the non-Jewish, non-Muslim characters then hug it out over their argument.
When a theater takes on a comedy, they rarely ask, is it funny? Humor is incredibly subjective and a director is going to look at HOW they can make it funny, rather than IS it funny. More and more often however, theaters are asking is the humor timely and is the humor offensive? I would argue that while the timely question is essential, that theaters should go beyond asking if a work is offensive. One reviewer summed up "The Ultimate Christmas Play (Abridged)" stating that the play is not for the easily offended and implying that finding something off-putting is the antithesis of having a sense of humor. This is where I believe that "Is it offensive?" is the wrong question to ask. By definition deciding whether a work is "offensive" - causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset, or angry - is putting the responsibility on the audience. In essence, this question tries to predict others' reactions, and many people believe that being offended by something is a weakness in an individual - that the problem is not with the work itself, but with the audience member's own sensitivity, and thus their own fault.
Instead, I believe it is a theater's responsibility in choosing works to examine what messages they want to be sending to their audience. If we are interested in building a welcoming, multi-cultural arts community that reflect, speak to, and inspire growth in the local and globally connected communities we live, work, and play in, than we need to select theatre pieces directed at these goals. Racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural humor has its place in this as long as it is questioning stereotypes rather than reinforcing them, asking poignant questions about our own cultural assumptions rather than distilling complex cultures down into bite-sized frosting to be put on a Christmas cookies.
Rather than asking is this offensive, let's start asking if a work fits our mission.
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