Our Answer to anyone who was offended by or didn't understand our show:

Now that the show is over and we aren't afraid of giving away any of the content of the plays, I'd like to post a response to difficulties people had with the content of the last of the three plays, George and Claire. These difficulties were most publicly stated in the review published by the shepherd express.

We believe that a politically correct and dogmatic response to rape is inadequate. We prefer to treat this issue, (indeed any issue we encounter) in such a way that we encourage rather than stifle thought, discussion, and disagreement. We believe that doing this requires writing and producing messy plays that people may interpret differently. This is a risk that we (and any serious artists) have to take when dealing with potentially controversial content.

Our interpretation of George and Claire is that what George does at the end of the play is rape. George deserves no sympathy as he slinks out the door. The fact that he (like most rapists) blames his victim makes him even less deserving of sympathy. We realize that some of our audience is inclined to either sympathize with George, or to blame Claire. That is those audience members' problem, not ours. Also, some of our audience misinterprets our intentions, and believes that we are punishing or blaming women through Claire and apologizing for rapists through George. That's the risk you take when you refuse to spoon-feed themes and messages to the audience.

During talk backs we tried to address these issues to anyone who brought them up, with mixed success. It's difficult to predict how different people are going to react and the exact questions people are going to ask. It's even more difficult to anticipate people's reactions to our responses. By the end of the run we were better able to articulate our position, but we thank the people who gave us and the plays the benefit of the doubt about these issues.

Overall, I believe we achieved our goals with this piece, and we have no regrets about it and will not hesitate to take on equally challenging content in the same manner in the future.

Reactions? Feel free to contact us.