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Trouble In `Paradise'

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Muslim protests lead to cancellation of play
inspired by Palestinian teen suicide bomber's
murder of Israeli youth.

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arly last month, before the
script was finished, let alone
performed, the Cincinnati
Playhouse in the Park
bowed to intense pressure from the
Muslim community and canceled a
touring production of Paradise by
Glyn O'Malley.
The new play, aimed at eighth
through 12th-graders, explores the
impact of war on children through the
lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Performances at Greater Cincinnati
high schools had been scheduled for
March and April, to be followed by
two public performances at the play-
house, the area's most prominent
regional theater with a nearly $9-mil-
lion annual budget.
Protests by Muslim activists about
the play's anti-Islam bias and pro-
Zionist slant led to such "a stir we
were afraid we would lose so many
[high-school] bookings, it was not
worth pursuing," says Ed Stern, the
playhouse's artistic director.
"I believe in the play. [But] the play
would never be allowed to have a
voice of its own."
Neither he nor Bert Goldstein, the
playhouse's director of educational
programming, would comment on
whether or not the play might be pre-
sented at the theater at a later date.
New York playwright O'Malley says
the theater's option to produce his
play expires in May.

ato, 22c):

It was Goldstein who suggested that
O'Malley write about the Mideast
conflict and, in particular, the teenage
suicide bomber who last March killed
herself and two other people, includ-
ing a 17-year-old Israeli girl.
Playhouse in the Park commissioned
the play, which won this year's Lazarus
New Play Prize for Young Audiences,
given by the Lazarus Fund of the
Federated Department Stores
Foundation. Federated Department
Stores, headquartered in Cincinnati
and New York City, operates 468

stores in 34 states.
Acknowledging the play's sensitivity
for Muslims and Jews, O'Malley
agreed to attend a Dec. 16 reading at
the playhouse of the fifth draft of the
play. The idea was to hear constructive
comments from a rabbi, a professor of
Middle East studies and one or two
members of the Cincinnati Muslim
community.
Instead, more than a dozen angry
Muslims showed up and started to scream
at him that the play was racist, anti-Islam
and anti-Palestinian, O'Malley says.
Rabbi Robert Barr of Congregation
Beth Adam was the sole Jewish repre-
sentative to attend the Dec. 16 read-
ing. He was not comfortable with the
tone of some of the dialogue and
thought the playwright "sugarcoated"
the Palestinian girl's act of murder.
While Barr offered suggestions, he never
said the play should not be produced.
"There were times I wanted
O'Malley to take sides, but that wasn't
his job," says Barr.
"I wasn't there to give a seal of
approval or to give the perfect Jewish
position. The Muslims wanted an ideal-
ized version of Islam and the
Palestinian discussion. They weren't
willing to say people had different posi-
tions even within their own world."

Strongly Protested

With the play's cancellation, the com-
munity has lost the opportunity to
educate children about the Middle
East conflict, Barr says. However, he
doesn't blame the theater, with its lim-
ited time and resources, for not fight-
ing for the play.
"Extremists who can shout the loud-
est got to dominate the agenda," the
frabbi says. "Those that find that
uncomfortable walked away."
At the request of Muslim activist
Majed Dabdoub, the Cincinnati
Human Rights Commission held a
hearing Jan. 9 on the play.
Dabdoub, whose daughter attends
Cincinnati's Sycamore High School,
which has a significant Muslim and
Jewish population, worried the play
.would inflame students. He feared his
daughter, who covers her head, might
be endangered, says Art Shriberg,