Arts News
Dramatists Guild Joins Fight For Free Speech
By Amy Somensky
Dec 30, 2004, 15:49 GMT

The Dramatists Guild of America has joined the protest against a British company's decision to close a play that depicts rape and murder in a Sikh temple. The play's writer Gupreet Kaur Bhatti, herself a Sikh, is still in hiding after receiving death threats from Sikhs who believe her play is blasphemous and offensive. There also were violent demonstrations outside the theater.

"When the performance of a writer's work is stopped through violence and coercion, it threatens more than the life and career of a single playwright," the guild said in a statement Wednesday. "The implications are ominous for playwrights everywhere, and for anyone who recognizes that free expression is the fundamental guarantee of liberty in an open, democratic society.

"When repressive elements attempt to silence an artist's voice, the only appropriate response is to give that voice an even wider audience."

The guild, which represents playwrights, composers and lyricists, has offered to organize public readings of Bhatti's play in New York and in U.S. cities, even though Bhatti has refused to have the play staged elsewhere in England.

Guild prexy John Weidman said his organization would respect the writer's wishes. "The hope is that we can provide readings of the play where (Bhatti) feels less threatened. If she wants a voice on this side of the Atlantic, we'd very much like her to have it."

Source: Variety