Is there anywhere theater shouldn't go?

Should theater be offensive? I don't see why not. I don't think that theater should be created with the intention to offend, but that does not neccessarily mean that theater shouldn't be allowed to offend.

My friend brought up a production of CP Taylor's Good, which is a play about a professor who starts off as an intellectual who writes a pro-euthanasia novel and turns into a full fledged Nazi of the 3rd Reich. The play, not surprisingly, sheds light on the psychology of national socialism and clarifies the idea that the Nazi takeover of the german psyche was a gradual process as opposed to an overnight sensation. When she told me about Taylor's play, I got really excited - from my perspective, it's an incredibly interesting question to confront the audience with.

BUT, she would have none of it. The idea that the play would attempt to justify the professor's degradation offended her. At one point in our discussion, she asked if the director really had the right to bring that question to the table - whether it was even ethical to justify a man's transformation into what many would term a monster.

In a conversation at the University of Chicago a couple years ago, Anne Bogart supported the idea that Theater, a giant waste of time, exists to fill the void in America's soul. Since that view of theater makes me feel as though what I'm saying is important, I'm going to run with it.

Bottom line, I really thing it's all fair game. Here's why: Theater, to me, is about story telling. Base. Story Telling. Dramatic Journey. The job of the director is to communicate a story, coherently and cohesively, to the audience. I could fault a director for preaching, but to be fair every textual interpretation will contain the biases of the interpreter, and it's the director's prerogative to let the audience see the story from his or her perspective

I understand how my friend could have gotten offended, and that she may not be too happy about what she saw, but how awesome is the idea that an innocent man can be corrupted by something so heinous? Without acknowledging it, understanding it, exploring it...can't it happen again? The bottom line is this production has stuck with her. Maybe it was the swastikas that they dropped from the catwalk at the end of the play...maybe not...but this production was the first thing she jumped to when I mentioned that i saw a place for provocative subject matter on stage.

Personally, I don't think that you should restrict theater from going anywhere...other than to the realm of bad taste. Nobody should be subjected to those horrors. Fucking Alan Cumming.