Word: nea
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Though this all seems familiar and a bit dated (the NEA controversy was years ago), Rudnick's dialogue is so snappy and pleasantly consonant it doesn't matter. ("I worship you, I adore you, last Halloween, I was you" crows one of Alex's downtown friends to the bouffanty Mrs. Bemiss.) Director Christopher Ashley uses Derek McLane's sleek, convincing sets--Alex's loft and the Civic Central art museum--to the fullest extent, giving the actors a range of movement and building rhythm through the performance...
Ironically, as Hughes himself pointed out, Mapplethorpe never got a cent from the NEA; the museum putting on his "The Perfect Moment" exhibit did. But the symbolism was enough to suffice. The artist, who died before the controversy reached its real boiling point, turned Jesse Helms and other politicians into kids at a peep show. For a brief moment in art history, "that bullwhip" was more famous than the Mona Lisa...
...fact that the National Endowment for the Arts has little to do with the collapse of the American family, for instance, does not prevent Buchanan from announcing that if he is elected, "the first week I'm going to walk out of that White House down to the NEA. I'm going to padlock the place and fumigate...
...distributed $3 million to 3,000 artists, helping pay for such works as Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston's 1990 film about transsexuals and drag queens. The group has also aggressively battled cuts in federal arts funding, taking part, for example, in a successful 1990 lawsuit to prevent the nea from denying funding to artists just because their work is perceived by some as offensive...
Even when she gives congressional budgeting a brief tongue-lashing for the NEA's funding predicament, Wendy demurs rather than presenting herself as an authority. She lowers her voice as if to acknowledge a tacit understanding of what she is about to say. "You know what theater politics are like," she pines, leaning toward the front row, "so rather than blame the Newts of this world I look internally and ask what the liberals did wrong." She knows she's preaching to the converted and can get away with criticizing her own kind...