Otterblog

We ran a preview yesterday of a play appearing at SECCA at the end of the month. Nothing unusual about that. Except this: Nobody under 18 is going to be admitted to Southern Baptist Sissies, a Theatre Alliance production that tells the story of four young gay men and their relationship with the Baptist church. A disclaimer: I haven’t seen the play. There’s no MPAA rating system for drama. But at first blush this seems pretty darned close to the NC-17 rating, which has replaced the old X rating. Here’s what the ratings mean. As you might imagine, there have been extremely few NC-17 movies produced in recent years for commercial distribution in mainstream movie theatres. And I would be hard-pressed to remember the last time we reviewed an NC-17 movie.

I wasn’t here the later part of last week, but there’s a small part of me thatI felt a little bit uneasy about previewing a play that—at least on the surface—had the same admissions bar as an NC-17 film. I asked Lynn Felder, an assistant features editor who coordinates much of our arts coverage, for her thoughts on whether I was potentially overreacting or overreaching. In a word: Yes. Here’s her fuller comments:

X-rated? Where’d you get that?
It’s more like between a PG-13 and R.
“Aimed at mature audiences, Southern Baptist Sissies, the last in the Shores trilogy, contains graphic language and content, some nudity (not frontal) and cigarette smoke. No one under 18 will be admitted.”
I’m confident that the No one under 18 is a way to err on the conservative side. Theatre Alliance has done this frequently, as they frequently produce shows aimed at “mature audiences.”
I think the fact that Jamie Lawson, the director, was willing to say “This is what it was like for me growing up in the church” gave the story some context right away. The play takes a humorous look at a serious subject.
I don’t imagine it’s any more risque than “The Full Monty” and about a gazillion other entertainments that we tell people about.
I guess we would extend the same preview status to an NC-17 movie if there was some reason to, but we’d take it case-by-case.
This is a local production with local folks standing behind it and a respectable theater company producing it.

Lynn makes some strong points. And the self-restraint aspect, in terms of erring on the side of not letting children in—even if accompanied by adults—is an important difference between this and the NC-17 rating.