“Right to Be Forgotten”: play at Arena Stage looks at a controversial Internet “publicity” issue
“Right to Be Forgotten”, a policy in European Internet law and an idea a lot of people would like to implement in the United States, is now the name of a 95-minute, one-act stage play by Sharyn Rothstein, directed by Seema Sueko, playing until November 10, 2019 at the Arena Stage in Washington DC in the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle. That is a conventional stage (not arena) set up to look like a wide-screen movie in 3-D. The stage space was divided into upstairs and downstairs, with tweets sometimes projected on the cement ledge between the floors as the theater momentarily darkened. The rest of the space was a hybrid modern workplace and apartment (in Michigan).
The program notes include essays on the issue by Molly Smith, artistic director, and a “dramaturgy note” by Naysan Mogjani, literary manager, which maintains that the right was strengthened in May of 2018 in Europe by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which also is part of California state law. It essentially means that search engines have to remove listings about private individuals when requested, by following certain procedures.
The play presents an appealing young man Derril Lark (John Austin), now 27, with degrees in comparative literature, who says he is having trouble both in his dating (heterosexual) life and getting jobs because his online reputation was sundered a decade earlier when he was accused (with great exaggeration) of “stalking” a girl friend Eve (Guadalupe Campos), who now is somewhat apologetic and willing to admit she went over the top herself. Derrill asks a lawyer Marta (Melody Bitiu) to represent him pro bono in trying to get search engines to remove gratuitous postings about him. The lawyer is at first very critical of his expectations and behaviors.
Later a politician (Alvaro Santos, played by Edward O’Blenis) wants to make the problem a campaign issue.
In my own practice, I’ve had maybe three occasions where someone asked me to remove mention of their name or other material on my websites (largely the original legacy sites). They were more concerned about being mentioned at all than about the search engines. In each such case there were some unusual circumstances.
After the play we had a half-hour discussion with the cast, summarized in my own video (which I made in the lobby).
(Posted on Tuesday, November 5, 2019 at 8:30 PM EST)