A rant about "Mature Language"

There are posters all over the Interplayers lobby warning of impending doom and global destruction, all because Terrence McNally's script for *Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune* is R-rated.
These are two adults having a one-night stand and all-night-long debate about whether they're going to make anything more of it than just sex. So while the conversation can get philosophical and even poetic, it also includes references to particular body parts and sex acts, along with fart jokes and f-bombs.
This is objectionable?
Two people have just fucked each other silly, and now they're supposed to revert to prudish standards of decorum? So why this need for "mature language" warnings plastered all over the Interplayers lobby?

How many people ever attend a play without having asked anyone ANYTHING about its content? (That is, in a world filled with electronic media, advertising and word-of-mouth, it'd be awfully difficult not to know the basic premise of this or any other stage play, if you're actually attending it.)
If you're looking for a G rating, you don't show up at a one-night-stand play in the first place. And if you're curious about how humans behave in their most intimate, vulnerable, needy moments, you're probably expecting that the language might get spicy like jalapenos.
Shouted profanity can be discomforting, yes, because audience members need to continue sitting there in the dark, more or less quiet -- and more or less lending consent to all the dirty talk by the fact of their remaining silent about it.
But when it comes to sex, love, companionship, and the pursuit of happiness, a little squirming around in our seats may not be such a bad thing. You won't change your mind about anything if you don't get a little uncomfortable first.

The point being: Why is Spokane posting R-rated warnings that would have been appropriate 40 years ago but which now seem superfluous and quaint? When people fuck and then discuss it afterwards, they tend (surprise, surprise) to use the word "fuck."

The 1991 movie with Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino sanitized most of that out. It was intended for a general audience, and the suits took out whatever they deemed objectionable. (They got an R rating.)


But in the theater, we need to feel that we're nearly in the room with these two. And a couple engaged in all all-night boinking session are not about to shy away from colorful terms.
Every single person in the Interplayers auditorium had to know that they were about to witness a play about fornicators -- a one-night stand, working-class characters, emotions laid bare, a very frank discussion. So why are we making such a big deal here about the dirty talk?
Reed McColm told Bobo that he had to soft-sell the script to the Interplayers board, downplaying all the off-color language that McNally's characters use.
For some, prolific profanity is a deal-breaker: If a play has it, they're not going. And that's their right.
What I'm objecting to is the notion that profanity-laced plays are somehow a) unrealistic or b) ipso facto immoral.
But they'll miss out on the play's ultimately hopeful message. The Christian message of salvation -- we are all sinners, God's grace has redeemed us, we must endure, we must choose to live generously -- is actually validated by a play like Frankie and Johnny.
It isn't a bleak or immoral play; it's an honest and hopeful one. I just wish it were being given a better production than it currently is at Interplayers.
[ spoof R-rating from panelsonpages.com ]

review of *Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune*

performed at Interplayers Professional Theater through Oct. 3

An apartment. Very dim light. Loud, guttural yelps of orgasmic delight. Laughter. "I wish I still smoked," she says.
Well, they're certainly having a good time tonight.
Too bad the mood isn't maintained in Interplayers' production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (through Oct. 3).
The problem's in the acting. For most of the first act, line-deliveries didn't match emotions described in the script; beats were lost, significant moments rushed through and undervalued.
As Johnny -- the short-order cook who's lonely and curious, but determined to improve his emotional lot in life -- John Henry Whitaker portrays a motormouth who doesn't speak quickly. He's a passionate guy who displays no passion.
Whitaker doesn't enact lines, he recites them. He's supposed to stare at Frankie (Karen Kalensky) intently and doesn't; he's supposed to be playful (during a close-your-eyes-and-sit-on-the-floor game) and isn't. Later, when he's supposed to express shock at witnessing an act of violence over in another apartment, he's about as surprised as when you find something that was supposed to be filed under M filed instead under N.
A carpe diem outburst, delivered while kneeling, seems more creepy than full of any lust for life. The "open your robe" sequence -- Johnny just wants to admire her naked body, just for 15 seconds -- doesn't work as well as in the movie, in which Al Pacino expresses puppy-dog appreciation while Michelle Pfeiffer chatters about this and that, nervously. Here it's more like a gynecological examination with an irritated patient.
Kalensky's character, meanwhile, is insecure and lacking in self-confidence: She's not so sure she wants this fancy-talkin' fella making goo-goo eyes at her, coming on way too strong. But Kalensky's manner is more festive (let's party!) and frantic (who is this guy who I've invited into my bedroom?!) than insecure. Again and again, she pulls her robe around herself, indicating her defensiveness. But Frankie's tattered self-esteem doesn't become evident until much later, and by then it's too late.


For much of the second act, Frankie and Johnny (played in this production by real-life spouses) act like a long-married couple, negotiating just how much they can tolerate in the other. They've lost out on their dreams; they have plenty of regrets; they're feeling older.
Director Jonn Jorgensen doesn't coax much passion out of Whitaker. In a couple of moments calling for tenderness and physical intimacy, Jorgensen has Whitaker planted over by the kitchen counter, all the way across the stage from Kalensky. (A promise never to hit a woman is more credible if you're actually within range of hitting her when you say it.)
The first-act misinterpretations are unfortunate, because Terrence McNally's script has many good observations and touching moments, and because the acting becomes simpler and more heartfelt in both of the hopeful act-ending sequences.
Kalensky has a wonderful monologue when Frankie recalls her high school prom -- illuminated by the sunrise just outside her window, her face glows with pleasing nostalgia.
And Kalensky doesn't make a big deal of Frankie's having the munchies: Her literal hunger implies her emotional hunger and loneliness, but Kalensky suggests the point simply, without indicating her character's neediness.
A lovely final sequence, rendered simply both in the acting and the directing, has Frankie and Johnny bathed in soft light and Debussy's music, yet with the romance undercut -- realistically, amusingly -- by some playful bickering.
So the evening's not a total loss. But McNally's script is much better than the performance it's receiving here.
[photos: playwright Terrence McNally, from the La Jolla Playhouse; Kalensky and Whitaker watching TV, from the Interplayers production; by Young Kwak]

*Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune*

by Terrence McNally
at Interplayers Professional Theater, Sept. 17-Oct. 3 (artistic director: Reed McColm)
directed by Jonn Jorgensen
starring Karen Kalensky and her real-life husband, John Henry Whitaker
The cook has a crush on the waitress. Can they turn a one-night stand into something more?
1987 play starred Kathy Bates, who wanted the movie role, which went instead to Michelle Pfeiffer (with Al Pacino, Nathan Lane, and Kate Nelligan)
McNally will turn 70 on Nov. 3.




[photos by Young Kwak for The Inlander]