The Playgoer: Labute to Voice: Fuck You (Playgoer unharmed)

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Labute to Voice: Fuck You (Playgoer unharmed)

Wow, and I thought I had Neil Labute problems...

In last week's Village Voice--the very same issue, in fact, as my own more respectful thumbs- down of Mr. LaB's In a Dark Dark House--ran this slightly more, uh, unguarded? take by James Hannaham on a one-act by said dramatist in the latest E.S.T. marathon.
Things We Said Today, by hateful Neil LaBute.
Tired idea #547: Draw parallel between "us" and characters from Greek drama, using extreme violence as "proof." Dana Delany fights to lend credible emotional arc to scene in which wife's discovery of husband's years of infidelity with sister leads her to abort own fetus w/ handy steak knife in crowded restaurant. Would that LaBute's mom had done same. Fact that people won't ignore LaBute better evidence that humanity sucks than his stupid plays.
Well turns out playwright reads the Voice. Hence, this week...
Re James Hannaham's "The Five Spot [June 13-19]: I'm usually very tactful in my letters to critics, but very few of them talk shit about my mother--pleasebe kind enough to tell Hannaham that he's a pussy and that if my mom doesn't drive to New York and wash his mouth out with soap, kick his ass, and laugh in his fucking face over his pathetic I-wish-I-was-a-playwright review, I just might. Thanks for delivering the message--you folks are really doing terrific work, keep it up.

Neil LaBute
Los Angeles, California
As for that "keep up the good work," perhaps he's picking up from another letter just last fall...
Please pass along my thanks to Michael Feingold for almost reviewing Wrecks ["Unnecessary Evils," October 25–31]. I'm sorry that he didn't enjoy it any more than he did, and I hope he enjoys the next play a bit more (it has "jerks" and "twists," so he should, as it takes one to know one). As for me, I'll wait happily to see his next translation/adaptation of a more suitable play for the New York theatergoing public.

Neil LaButeLos Angeles, California
Now I feel insulted he hasn't puffed his chest at out at me, too. I'll have to be meaner next time.

Nice how the letters all come from LA.

Note: No link as of yet on the 1st letter, so I just typed it in from the print ed. Don't know what's up at villagevoice.com this last week, but as you may notice many pages--including theatre--have not been updated. Including my latest review! But I'm on that.

9 comments:

parabasis said...

Look, I don't like LaBute's plays, but James Hannaham's paragraph was completely inappropriate and out of line. It reads like it was written from one of the staff writers at idontlikeyouinthatway or something. Just inappropriate, meanspirited snark. The very same kind of inappropriate, meanspirited snark that we should be trying to eschew in theater criticism.

Anonymous said...

Well, Mr. Hannaham is part of the Elevator Repair Service combine, which has had its share of sensational interpretations (or, as the VOICE has put it, "theatrical graffiti" of existing texts, so mebbe this dis is an overture for E.R.S. to start mixmastering La Bute's body of work.

It could happen.

Anonymous said...

I believe he was a member of ERS way back but has not been one for some time.

Anonymous said...

Hannaham was imho using a telegraphic style to make a good and amusing point about needing to review a bunch of short plays in a short space. That part doesn't bother me. But his suggestion that a playwright's mother should have done violence to herself, though obviously meant to be humorous (and I admit I laughed), crosses the line. I get that he was trying to capture LaBute's own mean-spirited view, but I found that very distasteful. I, for one, HATE LaBute's work, but don't want criticism to echo his amorality. As for LaBute's letters -- he writes plays about violent, selfish, women-hating assholes that bank on the sensationalism of his nastiness. And his feelings are hurt by a review that takes issue? Gimme a break. These macho letters are just more effort to create his puffy public persona. Gross.

Anonymous said...

"I, for one, HATE LaBute's work, but don't want criticism to echo his amorality. As for LaBute's letters -- he writes plays about violent, selfish, women-hating assholes that bank on the sensationalism of his nastiness. And his feelings are hurt by a review that takes issue? Gimme a break."

Yep, that, right up there? That's what I wanted to say. Can't use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, etc.

Anonymous said...

Inappropriate? Hardly. Hannaham has always written his theater reviews like they were classic Voice music reviews. Straight and to the point, not filled with gnarled theatricalizing. He can be a fan one minute and a fucking prick the next. And I enjoy that I know what he thinks even if he is a friend of mine. My problem with criticism in places like the Voice and TONY and why I don't take any of it seriously is that half the time the fucking reviewer just won't say what they mean, wrapping themselves up in language to avoid telling the truth or even more often recycling tired critical postures to avoid having to even think about what that truth might be. Witness every review that mentions Wooster or Foreman out of pure lack of anything intelligent to say about the actual work. I say bring it on. Let's have a robust, nasty and inappropriate theater press. And let's have a theater that deserves a good fight. Better than the milquetoast crapturds we usually get to litter the coffee houses with. Just my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Yes, yes -- but attack the PLAYS not the PERSON.

Anonymous said...

Hannaham soiled himself with these whack smartalec comments passed to us as criticism. I find it unsettling that others are actually trying to defend this type of thing.

Scott Walters said...

There is no excuse for Hannaham's crudity. Does he write his reviews with spraypaint on bathroom walls? is there no sense of civility in the country anymore?