NBC was well within its rights to terminate Gillis’s employment. Private companies are not bound by its restrictions. The First Amendment only protects people in the United States from government censorship. And it illustrates commonly held misunderstandings about what is and is not considered protected speech under the First Amendment.įor the record, being fired from Saturday Night Live - or any TV show for that matter - is not a First Amendment issue. This comedy controversy highlights the tricky intersection between our fundamental freedoms and cultural trends it also reveals the messy collisions that can take place between opposing viewpoints. Several comedians came to his defense, claiming that Gillis was a victim and that his firing exemplified an erosion of free speech in the United States of America. In September 2019, comedian Shane Gillis was hired and then promptly fired by the long-running sketch comedy show after his racist and homophobic comments from a year-old podcast came to light. The sheer giddy joy of performance here is irresistible, if also quite goofy.Did you hear the one about the comedian who got fired from Saturday Night Live for making offensive comments before he ever set foot on the show? It’s no joke. And the group interactive dance segment, a cathartic fantasia to the tune of George Michael’s “Freedom” involving the funky chicken, jazz hands and body stockings, is one of the most endearing musical numbers in recent memory. The time-traveling song-and-dance mash-up of Abe Lincoln and Mary Warren is a hoot. She’s got real insight into the blend of neediness and ambition that fuels a showboat. Deely, in particular, shines in the production’s charming musical theater numbers. He vividly re-creates the gawky narcissism of adolescence and the dawning frustration that the adult world holds more questions than it does answers.Īll three actors deftly tap into the curious blend of awkwardness and sarcasm that marks the high school experience. While the play has its rough edges (the witch hunt plot never really goes anywhere and some of the video montages feel clumsy), Karam nails the zeitgeist of acne and angst. Solomon is wound so tight he doesn’t realize that wearing Izod shirts and blinding white polo shoes every day is social suicide. He’s a rabid cub reporter on the school paper, the Trojan, and he’s obsessed with uncovering sexual scandals, an interest piqued when the town’s right-wing mayor is caught consorting with teen boys. She also hoodwinks Solomon (Jason Frank) into signing up. Howie’s a tad too cool for the debate club (he came out at the age of 10), but he’s new to town and not anxious to get branded as a freak. She knows that Howie likes to cruise the Internet to hook up with older men (like the school’s drama teacher), and she knows that he doesn’t want the news broadcast. She’s so lonely her laptop is her BFF, but she makes the kids on “Glee” look like dilettantes.ĭiwata talks Howie (a tart turn by Maro Guevara) into joining - or rather she blackmails him. After weathering chronic rejections from the school’s drama department, Diwata turns to cyberspace to get in touch with her inner diva. You know, like “Angels in America” and “Wicked.” In fact, she idolizes the real-life Idina Menzel (Elphaba in the original Broadway cast of “Wicked”) almost as much as she worships fictional Mary Warren (from “The Crucible”). The team captain is Diwata (the exuberant Jayne Deely), an irrepressibly dorky girl who adores epic theater. The location is an allusion to the Salem, Mass., witch hunts and the atmosphere of repression and denial that surrounds the city. Playwright Stephen Karam, who was a member of his high school’s speech and debate team, centers the action on three misfit teens bonding over the issues of sex, lies and censorship in their Salem, Ore., high school. Directed by Robin Stanton, the regional premiere runs through July 18 at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company. The ever-blurring boundary between public and personal is cleverly plumbed in “Speech & Debate,” a fiercely funny dark comedy that slyly examines how 21st-century teens must come of age in a world where nothing is secret but everything seems to be taboo. It’s her personal multimedia diary, and she is quite shocked to learn that anyone has the chutzpah to read it. A frumpy teenage girl chugs a wine cooler and blogs about her innermost desires every Friday night.
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