I am ignorant. I didn’t really know that fact, perhaps proving the claim made by Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck.
Nestruck has been taking issue with stories that Sun Media has been running regarding Homegrown, the play about Shareef Abdelhaleem now appearing at SummerWorks theatre festival in Toronto. On Twitter on Wednesday Nestruck told the world he was against the Sun’s attempted censorship of the play, which as we have reported portrays, Abdelhaleem in a “positive light.”
Actor Lwam Ghebrehariat portrays Shareef Abdelhaleem, a convicted member of the so-called Toronto 18, in the play Homegrown. (Handout Photo)
Now a bit of background here, Shareef Abdelhaleem is a convicted terrorist. He was charged and found guilty by a court of law of being a member of the Toronto 18 plot. This is the group that looked into ways to set off truck bombs in the Toronto financial district and discussed storming Parliament and beheading the prime minister.
Given that background we found it to be interesting the federal government and a couple of banks were sponsoring, indirectly, the presentation of this play. We called up the various players and asked them how they felt about supporting a play about a man that plotted to blow up their banks or behead the leader of the government now giving money. We reported on their reactions.
So far none of the writers of these stories – Don Peat, David Akin and myself – have tried to have Homegrown censored. We have not even called for the sponsorships or tax dollars to be withdrawn. All we have done is questioned the funding. When I pointed this out, Nestruck replied.
@brianlilley I’m afraid you are ignorant of the realities of the arts. It’s de facto censorship.
Now I don’t know J. Kelly Nestruck and he certainly doesn’t know me. There is no way he could know that I have acted in theatre productions, worked as a marketing and communications officer for a theatre, worked for a local arts council, arts festivals and produced plays and live music performances. I have invested and lost my own money in theatre shows.
One thing I can assure readers is that I am not ignorant of the performing arts, how they are presented or how they are funded. That doesn’t mean I agree with J. Kelly Nestruck. Live theatre is, as any expert can tell you, the most commercially viable and least dependent on government funding of all the performing arts.
For some reason however Canadian arts aficionados consider any decision not to fund an art project as a form of censorship. That’s a load of garbage. Forbidding a play from being performed by force of law is censorship, choosing not to fund it is simply a matter of, well….choice.
There is no right to arts funding, a point that many supporters of the performing arts just don’t understand. Just because a play is written doesn’t mean it should be funded. Just because a theatre company wishes to put it on does not mean it should receive a grant.
Nestruck, Toronto city councilor Adam Vaughan and other defenders of Homegrown would prefer it if the hoi poloi, the great unwashed would just pay the bills and shut up.
No.
PS. Sun Media’s David Akin, a political journalist that used to be a theatre critic will be there to review Homegrown when it opens. Make sure you check back for the review.
Tags: art, Globe, terror play
A “political journalist *that used to be* a theatre critic”. ?? And we’re supposed to believe that we’ll get an unbiased, objective appraisal and analysis of the play?
Do you actually think that people will not figure out, understand, that targeting funding for certain groups, and withdrawing it from others, is NOT censorship? How stupid do you Tories think we are?
@Brian I’ve also written about this, http://blogs.canoe.ca/canoedossier/arts-alive/feds-cry-foul-play/ but I’m a little confused.
Akin’s article refers to a “sympathetic portrayal” of the convicted terrorist; yours says he’s shown “in a positive light.”
There’s a world of difference.
Curiously, the website suggests the play’s focus is actually on the guy’s lawyer, or at least on their relationship.
http://www.summerworks.ca/2010/p/homegrown.php
@David Newland: I’m a conservative (*not* a Conservative), and a hawk. If the play portrayed a convicted terrorist in a negative light – heck, if it portrayed him as evil incarnate – I would be against funding it with tax dollars. That’s because people like me (yes, all 24 of us) are against public funding of the arts, regardless of topic, slant, bias, what have you. In your piece you quote a Harper spokesperson saying: “We are extremely disappointed that public money is being used to fund plays that glorify terrorism. Had the plot hatched by the Toronto 18 succeeded, thousands of innocent Canadians would have died”.
Bosh. If that government were conservative the way I understand that term, he would have said: “We are extremely disappointed that public money is being used to fund plays”. Or “light rail”. Or “car manufacturers”. Or “daycares”. Or… well, you get the idea.
@Margaret: It’s not censorship if nobody gets a grant. (And, um, when’s the last time a conservative playwright got a grant?)
“Live theatre is, as any expert can tell you, the most commercially viable and least dependent on government funding of all the performing arts.”
Okay, that was hilarious.
Sure, maybe that’s true of Broadway musicals, but small-to-medium-sized theatre, doing drama, in Canada, is enormously grant-dependent. Also, what are “all the performing arts”? You mean it’s more commercially viable than opera, ballet and contemporary dance, maybe the symphony? Okay, given. But if you start including rock concerts, stand-up comedy and other current popular modes of performance, live theatre is much more expensive and much less commercially viable to do.
In any case to say the Sun’s coverage was not implicitly a call to withdraw funding and ensure similarly politically risky material does not receive funding in the future – which is censorious in intent and in effect, although not strictly speaking censorship in itself – is simply laughable.
Brian, the best thing you could have done is ignore this play. Now with all your free advertising people will see it as they are simply curious. Then they will say what a success this genre of entertainment is and will will have more of this crap to ignore.
The only good thing I have to say is that he is trying to make an honest buck. Let’s give this play some money and defund the CBC!
Can someone tell when the CBC is planning on airing a pro-life documentary? I’m getting tired of watching Al Gore documentaries.
Do any of the critics of Mr. Lilley care about CBC selectively funding certain types of documentaries?
@ferrethouse – Sorry Catholics (who are notoriously pro-life, and cannot think for themselves) are a majority group in Canada, so the CBC cannot publicly support their point of view.
I love people who cry censorship when choice in funding is raised. If funding concerns you so much, raise your own and don’t come begging for a handout.When you do suckle from the public teat, you are just going to have to take the criticism with the cash.
Not every one likes having their money spent on taxes; roads, sewage and other infrastructure they can live with..sympathetic portrayals of convicted terrorists not so much.
It’s laughable that when certain populist artists are wanted by the public (in publicly funded institutions) the ‘arts community’ has no problem applying its own form of censorship by not allowing the works of these artists to be seen.
Expect the left to get all up in arms that my blog is unfunded by taxpayers and thus it’s censorship!
So brian lilley how much should Kate @ SDA get Kathy @ 5 feet of fury or is Harper censoring them too?
Oopsie Brian I thought you said that on twitter,…
http://fence.blogspot.com/2010/08/i-wont-let-sun-go-down-on-me.html