The Playgoer: "Arts & Leisure" watch

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Sunday, July 31, 2005

"Arts & Leisure" watch

Yes, an occasional update on the wacky travails and editorial decisions over at the Sunday Times theatre page...

Hmm, with all the potentially interesting theatre subjects (the visiting luminary directors at Lincoln Center Festival, the upcoming season) why not do a serious profile of a big Broadway vanity-musical which is already a laughing stock. That's right a Lenon puff piece. And it's long! Will they eat it when the reviews come out? Hardly. They probably figure people would still rather read about a Beatle than the theatre any day...

(Sidenote: In the photo, is that Jann Wenner sitting next to Yoko? If so, no wonder his mouth is agape. Read Michael Reidel on why.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As someone who reads Playgoer's blog avidly, but not necessarily the New York Times theatre news/reviews, I must admit that yes, I was drawn to the "Lennon" article. So, mission accomplished on their part, I suppose. I apologize for being at least partially responsible for future puff pieces on bad and irrelevant theatre.

Why did I read it, you might ask? Well, the whole trainwreck aspect of the entire undertaking is quite fascinating, so I wanted to know more about what the unfortunate ticketholders/Beatle fans who feel obligated to go/friends and families of the cast might experience. And, yeah, I'm a Beatle nut too. Not nuts enough to see "Lennon," mind you, but plenty loopy enough to read an overly long article about it.

Keep up the good work!
Ron Nasty

Playgoer said...

Fair enough. The Times certainly doesn't have to go out of their way to add to the dishy rumor mill and condemn the show prematurely. But this piece just exemplifies the curse of the puff piece. Nobody is taking this seriously and Allan Kozin (an otherwise fine music critic) doesn't make a convincing case here...If anything, the message is: if you're a wacky famous millionaire like Yoko and are crazy enough to squander it on a Broadway vanity project, then we will still cover it as legitimate theatre. Just because it's on Broadway. (And people wonder why I don't care about fixing Broadway...)

And by the way, if dishing out the dirt is what you really want here, then do check out that Reidal piece in the Post (http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/49806.htm). Now there's at least a fun way to cover this show...