To ban or not to ban has been the question over the past few weeks. The controversy over the staging of the play Stitching has assumed proportions way beyond any expectations. As always in this polarised society we live in, battle lines were firmly drawn between two fronts and, yet again, reason and common sense took a secondary role in the debate.
Let me get my personal opinion out of the way. From what I have read and heard, which seems to be most of the script of the play, Stitching is not the type of play that tickles my fancy. My choice of entertainment tends to alternate between panto-type productions and other humorous pieces especially after stressful weekdays, or a more classical cultural dose of Shakespeare, preferably one of the plays I'm familiar with from school. But that's just me, and I heartily belong to the 'each to his own' fan club.
Rather than focusing on Stitching itself, I would rather focus more objectively on the issue and the ensuing debate.
I query the rationale behind the reading of the most explicit sections of the script on Xarabank in order to make the point of the play's unacceptability. It somehow jars with my sense of logic - a person who objects to a few hundred people hearing these phrases is then happy to read them out to a viewership of tens of thousands. Just to make his point (sensationally may I add), he was propagating the bits (also edited out of any possible mitigating context in the whole of the play) he wants to bar! It makes no sense, at least not to me.
On the other hand, the producers have been riding high on the publicity generated by this issue. I can't really blame them; over the years, the outright banning of anything - the prohibition of alcohol in the America of the 1920s; the local banning of the film Raid on Entebbe in the 1970s; the Islamic condemnation of Rushdie's Satanic Verses; the Catholic condemnation of Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ; the Jewish condemnation of Mel Gibson's Passion are but a few notable examples - only serves to grant a higher public profile, more popularity and free publicity to whatever is being banned or condemned.
That does not mean that I can agree that certain (to me) banal and ridiculous statements can be passed off under the blanket description of art. But then again, that's me, preferring to entertain myself with things that I can understand, and which deal with the more mainstream aspects of the human experience.
There are so many such works available that sometimes one gets the impression that certain productions are chosen purely for their place on the fringe of social behaviour, a positioning which will guarantee these productions sensationalist and practically free publicity and exposure.
The European context is one of multiculturalism and of public forums that encourage a healthy mix of productions, and comments have also been forthcoming from the EU Commission on this matter. The banning of this play has raised the whole issue of local sensitivities and put it at the forefront of public debate.
In this process, a huge chunk of the population who would otherwise have been totally oblivious of this production have now not only been made aware of it, but also slapped in the face with excerpts they (like myself) would rather have not heard.
On principle, we can take a leaf out of Voltaire's "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it".
On the practical side, as things developed, we were all given a good dollop of the script, and the production became the hottest topic over the past weeks.
The staging of this play for an 'Adults Only' audience with no controversy would have meant that only the aficionados of that type of culture would have gone to see it, as is their right.
I just wonder, and maybe somebody can enlighten me - was the aim behind this ban achieved, or did it, rather, serve the exact opposite purpose?
Dr Metsola Tedesco Triccas is a PN candidate for the European Parliament elections.