Apropos of nothing...

I had a letter to the editor published in the Times yesterday, but on nothing theatre-related.

It's also only in the online edition! Obviously my views on Thomas Friedman are too dangerous for print.

It's in response to this column of his last week. So Friedman-haters out there, go to town!

Ok, so how DO you memorize all those lines?

Yes, it's the question we all hate. The prototypical theatre-layman's question. And it is indeed one of the great fallacies that such memorization skills are all that separates a pro from some crack-up at parties.

Still...it is pretty amazing when you come to think of it. And no small feat indeed for actors who take on huge solo shows, or entire 90-minute monologues. When I saw the latest Connor McPherson play (Port Authority) which has three men delivering intertwining monologues, I did wonder at the skill and practice required not just to know the lines, but your cues! Especially when they're twenty minutes apart. I was falling asleep in the audience (not McPherson's most thrilling play) so imagine what it's like onstage for the 30th or so performance.

So while it is hardly sufficient it is certainly a necessary part of the actor's toolkit. Even though even the best of them have had notorious trouble with it. (Olivier famously "went up" a lot toward the end.) And it's interesting to ask: why? Is it just a visual requirement of "realism"? Perhaps in this age of the staged reading, audiences will come to expect it less.

What prompts these heretical thoughts is a wonderful photo from today's Times:


That's Norbert Leo Butz in his first night in Speed-the-Plow with script in hand. (Ok, on-couch in this moment.) You may recall he's been whisked in to replace Super Mercury Man Jeremy Piven who abruptly left due to a rare case of sushi-overdose.

It's really, really tough for an actor to go out on stage like this. You think going out off-book is vulnerable already! But this, especially when your cast mates are long off book, must feel very exposing. But I must say I admire Butz' humility in letting his process show, if you will. (He was off book in Act I, I should note. And by now probably the whole thing.) Yes, sometimes we've seen actors go out like this who just clearly don't know what they're doing. But everyone in the NY theatre knows what a consummate pro Butz is.

And so I found his description in the Times of what it's like to learn an intricate Mamet script in one week (a script in which he has the biggest part, mind you, and is almost never off stage) compelling in getting right at the anxiety at the heart of the stage actor's craft.

These days Mr. Butz cannot pause to contemplate anything that is not “Speed-the-Plow.” When he is not performing the play, a David Mamet satire about two Hollywood producers and the office temp who upends their lives, he is rehearsing it with his co-stars, Raúl Esparza and Elisabeth Moss, or he is reading the script with his wife and two young daughters. When he is getting a haircut or a massage or going to sleep, he is listening on an iPod to a recording of the play he made with Ms. Moss and Mr. Esparza.

Well aside from how much that IPod recording could get on EBay, this brought another question to my mind. And perhaps it's an unusually nuts & bolts one for this blog. But what is the best method to learn lines.

Care to share, actors? Does recording yourself really help? Do you go off into a secret lair or do you need the rehearsal process?

When I did plays in school, for instance, I found the best thing for monologues--after first basically getting at least the outline of it--was to force some really loyal friend to sit with the script and make you keep going back to the beginning until you got it right. (The important part was not looking at the script yourself that point but making yourself come up with mnemonics.)

Butz's experience, btw, reminds us how much a luxury even the paltry 3-4 week rehearsal process can be. (And why it's so important that's been fought for as a standard over the years. Producers would love a shorter process, believe me.) Once was the day in "rep"--as is true even today in road companies and various "semi-pro" companies--a week is it. Learn the lines on your own and come in off book on day one.

In fact, some directors still prefer and expect that. What do you think of that? Do you insist on being on-book through rehearsals in order to learn them? Or is it better to be freed up and off-book from the start?

And finally--how often do you get asked "How do you memorize all those lines?"

Dorfman on Pinter

The Chilean author of Death and the Maiden reflects on an important mentor.

As I plunged into every one of his works in the years that followed, Pinter became irreplaceably, uniquely inspiring. He showed me how dramatic art can be lyrical without versifying, can be poetic merely by delving into the buried rhythms of everyday speech. He whispered to me that we often speak in order to hide, and perhaps avoid, what we are really feeling and thinking. He was not afraid of silence or letting his characters lapse into stuttering or inscrutability. He understood that if you push reality hard enough, it will end up exposing under its surface another dimension -- fantastic, absurd, delirious. He suggested that the worst hallucinations of fear are not immune to the pendulum of humor.

But all of these lessons in dramatic craftsmanship pale next to what he taught me about human existence and about -- dare I say the word? -- politics.

From that very first play, I felt that Harold Pinter was unfolding a world that was deeply political. Not in the overt sense (as would happen later, beginning in the early '80s, in several of his dramas) that his creatures were affected by who governed them, whether this or that man controlled the army or gave orders to the police. No, these figments of Pinter's psyche, at least back in the '60s, did not care to dispute the public arena, were uninterested in changing the world for better or for worse. They were, on the contrary, sad citizens of intimacy, obsessed only with their own survival.

And yet, by trapping us inside the lives of those men and women, Pinter was revealing the many gradations and degradations of power with a starkness I had not noticed before in other authors who were supposedly dedicated to examining or denouncing contingent politics. All power, all domination and liberation started there, he seemed to be saying, in those claustrophobic rooms where each word counts, each slight utterance needs to be accounted for, is paid for in some secret currency of hope or suffering. You want to free the world, humanity, from oppression? Look inside, look sideways, look at the hidden violence of language. Never forget that it is in language where the other parallel violence, the cruelty exercised on the body, originates.

Two men waiting in a basement to kill somebody [The Dumbwaiter]. An old tramp laying claim to a derelict room [The Caretaker]. A birthday celebration interrupted by intruders [The Birthday Party]. A woman afraid of being evicted [The Room]. A son who comes home to his dysfunctional family accompanied by an enigmatic wife [The Homecoming]. Primal scenes of betrayal that could be transpiring anywhere on our planet, embodiments of a vast and disquieting landscape of dread, the precarious condition inhabited by most of contemporary humanity, the neglected narrative of the 20th century.

Full essay in today's Washington Post. A revealing look at why Pinter's writing transcended the language he used so well and attained such international appeal.

Brecht & Streep together again, on film!

B.B. as badboy. Berlin, 1920s.

Not that anyone's asking, but I do recommend the new doc, "Theatre of War," which I caught at Tribeca Film Fest earlier in the year. It's now at Film Forum thru January 6. If you're away for the holidays or can't fight the crowds to cram into the tiny Film Forum space, it'll make a fine rental, too.

First, it gives all those who didn't wait hours on line for the 2006 Delacorte Theatre "Mother Courage" a chance to finally see some choice bits of it. But while it purports--or at least teases--to be a voyeuristic backstage look at that production, it's actually much more valuable as a primer and teaching tool about Brecht in general--including some snippets of amazing archival footage.

Also--it actually forced me to reconsider my original appraisal of Meryl Streep's lead performance, which, on stage. I considered oddly muted. The camera shows us, though, how complex and powerful some of her moments were, especially in song. (In his Voice review of the film, James C. Taylor is led by one scene to proclaim, "Meryl Streep is arguably America's greatest living musical-theater actress." Something to that.)

But rather than recant my review entirely, I actually think this only reinforces what I've always thought the fundamental different between great stage actors and great film actors: the latter always play in a close-up.

Harold Pinter, 1930-2008

Sad Christmas tidings this year: Harold Pinter finally succumbed to cancer last night.

And in yet another NY Times phenomenon, the obit is written, in part, by another dead man, Mel Gussow. Guess they've been saving this one in store for a while.

(I believe the last time this happened was when Bob Hope's was written by the previously deceased Vincent Canby.)

Various other interesting takes from around the web:

Michael Billington, The Guardian

Pinter was an all-round man of the theatre of a kind we're unlikely to see again: a practical graduate of weekly rep and touring theatre who all the time nursed his own private vision of the universe. And that, in the end, was his great achievement. Like all truly first-rate writers, he mapped out his own country with its own distinctive topography. It was a place haunted by the shifting ambivalence of memory, flecked by uncertainty, reeking of sex and echoing with strange, mordant laughter. It was, in short, Pinterland and it will induce recognition in audiences for as long as plays are still put on in theatres.

(Terrific Guardian slideshow here, btw)

Newsday's Linda Weiner.

And two views of Pinter's politics from the London Independent: pro and con.

Plus, one of the most entertaining Pinter sites in general: The Harold Pinter Archive Blog! ("British Library Curators on Cataloguing the Pinter Archive")

And, of course, HaroldPinter.org

Update 12/26: Another cool slideshow now on NYT.com.

Oops, George Bush really IS "only for now"

You know, call me silly, but I actually did wonder the other day as I counted down the days to inauguration...Gee, what's it gonna be like at the finale of "Avenue Q" when--in the catchy list-song "Only For Now"--they add to the long list of things to bid good riddance to: "George Bush!... is only for now..."

Well apparently the Avenue Q folks have been wondering that, too. Says show's creator, Jeff Marx: ""We're still searching for the best way to celebrate the end of the Bush regime."

So what else to do but have a contest! Yup, amateur lyricists this--to paraphrase another amateur lyricist--is your moment!

If it weren't such a happy show, I'd say don't change it and let it be a period piece of life in alphabet city under the Bush years. Still, the line--and the huge applause that greeted it--was quite a cathartic moment when I saw it. Imagine how lame things are on Broadway when that felt dangerous to say on Broadway. (It was 2005, remember.)

Personally I'm very tempted to celebrate the end of Bush II by going ahead and spending my Bush-era "tax relief" check on Will Ferrell's Broadway vanity project:You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush. But only if I can go first preview: January 20.

Gotta love that title.

Caryl Churchill's "prophetic powers"

Kudos to Jeremy McCarter for using his new perch as "cultural critic" at Newsweek to--when asked to name a play to represent "arts and culture in the Bush era"--champion Caryl Churchill's Far Away over other more kneejerk options.

As you may know, the play (which came to New York Theatre Workshop in 2002 under Steven Daldry's direction) was about torture.

When the play reached New York in 2002, the final scene's vision of all-out war offered a twisted but true-to-life reflection of the paranoia we were feeling in those post-9/11 days. Six years later it speaks well of Churchill's prophetic powers that the other scenes now seem just as timely. The nighttime beatings that Joan witnesses (and the sorry excuses her aunt supplies) anticipate waterboarding, "stress positions," rendition. The hellish parade of hat-wearing prisoners now seems a grisly metaphor for the way that soldiers toyed—sometimes fatally—with inmates at Abu Ghraib.

Yet the real resonance of Churchill's play lies deeper than in eerie parallels. The arc of Joan's story reminds us how easy it is to forget the value of human life, how quickly we can become dehumanized ourselves. By the last scene, Joan tosses off the news that on her way to Harper's she's killed "two cats and a child under 5."

Well said. Still, I wonder if McCarter's editors at Newsweek--like those at NYT lately--have put the kibosh on the T-word itself in reference to US policies?

Quote of the Day

"My understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.”

-David Mamet, confirming reports yesterday that actor and alleged at-risk high-level mercury sufferer Jeremy Piven was jumping ship on the otherwise very successful Broadway revival of his play, Speed-the-Plow.

Too bad. Piven was actually very good in the show when I caught it in previews. But according to today's follow-up in Variety:"legiters view Piven’s health claims with skepticism -- and freely trade gossip about the actor’s perceived bad behavior, including ignoring the traditional half-hour call time."

But to me the godsend in all is this the return to the legitimate stage of William H. Macy, who has agreed to fill in in January. (Norbert Leo Butz, not bad himself, will start next week.) How little folks remember that before cult movies like Fargo skyrocketed him to minor-movie-stardom, Macy was arguably Mamet's main muse. (His stage performance in Oleanna was particularly masterful.) The two have continued to work together on film, but aside from a brief return to the Atlantic (a company he and Mamet co-founded) for American Buffalo a decade ago, Macy has left the theatre behind.

Wouldn't you think that such a well-regarded movie actor with actual stage chops would be highly in demand in today's New York theatre? Even (especially?) on Broadway? But no, one of our finest stage actors has gone to waste.

Unless he's just not interested anymore. Perhaps. And agreeing to go into Plow on such short notice is probably more a personal favor than anything else. (And don't forget Plow's director is current Atlantic AD Neil Pepe.) Still--even if the playwright and this play just make you wretch--you should seize the chance to see this man on stage for what--who knows--may be the last time!

PS. Riedel, of course, has the goods, in blunter form.

REVIEW: Potatoes of August

This week in the Voice, my review of the inaugurating show at the new Dixon Place space, Sbyl Kempson's Potatoes of August. The new space really is very nice, despite what I say about it being not quite finished yet. (Or at least the lobby/box office area wasn't by first preview.) But once it is (perhaps even now) it'll be a swell new venue. So good on 'em.

By the way, I'm glad to see the Voice site now has tags for each contributor, so there's now a handy link to all my pieces there.

Save Santa Cruz Shakes!

The perils of the nonprofit theatre economy are even hitting those companies ensconced on university campuses.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz--under new AD Marco Barricelli--has just been given notice by its host, University of California, Santa Cruz to balance their books or else.

In a meeting late Friday, UCSC officials, including Chancellor George Blumenthal, told representatives of the SSC board that the university could not continue to underwrite the theater company's budget shortfalls. As a result, SSC was given the charge to raise $300,000 beyond its already allotted budget commitments. The meeting was the culmination of two months of negotiations between SSC and its host university to find some means to keep the company going while minimizing the university's risk of covering the company's ongoing budget deficits.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz has been running annual deficits for several years and the university's Arts Division has been absorbing those losses, which, according to SSC, stand at a cumulative total of about $1.9 million. The projected deficit for the 2008 season is expected to be about $500,000. Blumenthal said he is a fan and supporter of Shakespeare Santa Cruz. But budget mandates brought on by deep cuts at the state level to the UC system have made continuing to underwrite SSC's deficits impossible, he said in an interview Sunday.

"Things might have gone on as we've done it before with some reforms," Blumenthal said, "but this year is different than all other years."

Why, you may ask?

The chancellor said UCSC's share of mid-year state budget cuts announced in September come to about $2 million. Similar budget cuts recently proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will bring a burden of an additional $4 to $5 million, said Blumenthal.

Well I guess Ahnold isn't alone amongst state university budget cutting governors this year. And these times will surely test the relationships between universities and the resident theatres they sponsor and/or house. (Which are lots, by the way.) Unfortunately, I fear many of these relationships may not pass that test.

Anyone out there in the Bay Area can help out Marco with three hundred grand?

Talk About Subsidiary Rights!

Would you rather share your royalties with a nonprofit theatre company...or your ex-wife?

Mamet couldn't be reached for comment, but it's long been rumored that he makes very little money from "American Buffalo." Sources say royalties from that play, as well as those from many of his other early works, go to his ex-wife, Lindsay Crouse, who reportedly got them as part of a divorce settlement. They were married from 1977 to 1990. Mamet married Rebecca Pidgeon in 1991. "I guess he just doesn't feel the need to work for his ex-wife," says a theater executive.

Al Pacino has long wanted to do a Broadway production of "A Life in the Theater," Mamet's 1977 backstage drama, but Mamet, sources say, shows little interest in seeing it revived. "You always hear that his ex-wife gets the money from that one, too," says a theater insider.

Hence the playwright's marked indifference to the ill fortunes of the recently opened (and closed) Broadway revival. Or so reports Riedel.

Robert Prosky, Paul Benedict

The past week saw the passing of two fine old stage actors of whom I was particularly fond, and I was saddened to just only now hear about them. Wonderful artists both, they also happened to be children of the "golden age" of 1960s regional theatre.



Robert Prosky,77, was a founding member of DC's Arena Stage whose later Broadway triumphs included the original Shelley Levine in the 1984 Glengarry Glenn Ross. On TV he starred in Hill Street Blues, but I will most fondly remember seeing him in Lee Blessing's Walk in the Woods, as Edison in the otherwise forgettable Camping with Henry and Tom, and just a few seasons ago in Michael Frayn's Democracy. He was still active on on the boards to the end, especially at the Arena and in Philly, where he just did The Price earlier this year.



Paul Benedict, 70, might actually suffer from the brilliant turns he's given in Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman (he played the title character, sort of) and Spinal Tap ("I'm just the way God made me, sir.") Not to mention years on The Jeffersons. But he started out with David Wheeler's fabled Theatre Company of Boston along with buds Pacino and Hoffman. Off Broadway in the 70s, he went on to work extensively with Jules Pfeiffer and Terence McNally (both acting and directing).

I had the privilege of getting to know him while assisting on a Boston production of Ah, Wilderness ten years ago in which he played a heartbreaking Uncle Sid--heartbreaking precisely because he refused to seek any pity in the role and just let this hollowed-out old drunk have a good time on stage, yet letting us see the fatigue and weariness in his ravaged old carcass. But nothing was as fun as playing "guess that film" with him during rehearsal breaks--where he would try to stump you with obscure lines or visual shots from old movies. ("A newspaper hits the streets as a woman walks up Broadway at dawn...")

Rest in peace, guys.

Any takers on my clue, btw?

Doubts about "Doubt"?

Reading Ella Taylor's Voice review of JP Shanley's film of his mega-successful Pultizer and Tony-winning play Doubt (a major December release & Oscar contender in case you hadn't heard), I wondered why we never heard such critiques of the play on stage.

Shanley pushes moral relativism as far as it will go, which is all the way to preposterous via obnoxious in a key scene between Sister Aloysius and the black boy's mother that's meant to make us go "Aaaah," but made me go "What?!!"

If Doubt has a point to make about not rushing to judgment, it is overwhelmed by the force of Shanley's profound ambivalence toward women. True, he throws in a biographical tidbit or two to reassure us that Sister Aloysius is not just a man-hating, dried-up old cartoon virgin. But she sure behaves like one, and for that she must be punished with a final meteorological flourish, in which the anguished old nun sits surrounded by snow and ice. It's telling that the movie is dedicated to the real-life Sister James, Shanley's history teacher. But it's history that lets Shanley down: Inadvertently, Doubt shows us that there are limits to an open mind. Knowing what we know now, I wish there had been more vigilant old bats around like Sister Aloysius to shield Catholic children from the predators within.

On stage I found Doubt a very well-crafted and extremely well-performed piece of parlor theatre. But one that disturbed in a way not seemingly intended. I don't think my response to the Catholic Church pedophilia scandal was we should grant church hierarchies more benefit of the doubt. (As Taylor points out, in the film Shanley shows Father Flynn "furtively stuffing a boy's undershirt into a locker," which indeed seems to give Sister Aloysius "reasonable cause for further research")

But is it possible, that under his own direction, Shanley's distaste for the Sister Aloysuis character--and sympathy for the progressive male priest--gets the better of him? And, as Manohla Darghis' NYT review suggests, does cinema tempt Shanley to show too much of the backstory and make the boy-victim too real to still treat the play's conflict as an abstract philophical quandry?

More to the point, did the paucity of female drama critics on the NYC scene cause such valid questions as Taylor raises to be ignored? Or just the disengagement of the print-media theatre press from civic life in general and an unwillingness to engage a play ideologically as well as aesthetically?

(I often find I can still respect a play aesthetically and not ideologically. Which can make for a more interesting review!)

"Are drama critics necessary?"

That's the facetious title of this week's "Theatre Talk" TV show, where Michael Riedel will again spotlight Jacques le Sourd, just recently let go from the Gannett chain, among others.

I'll be ready to take a swig every time they blame "the bloggers." Play along!

Bond. Edward Bond

"The fate of a democracy depends on its drama....[I]f the theater doesn’t change, then Obama will have failed."

-Elder statesman of the British badboy dramatists, Edward Bond. Anyone want to take up that statement?

From Helen Shaw's informative profile of the playwright in this week's Time Out, in advance of Robert Woodruff's new staging of Bond's Chair for Theatre for a New Audience, opening soon.

Quote of the Day

"My next assignment was on the Depression hits Broadway...I don't have to do that story now. I'm living it."

-Jacques le Sourd, theatre critic for Gannett Newspapers, just laid off after 35 years.

Don't expect Gannett to fill the position.

(As told to Riedel.)

Holy Shit, The Ohio???

Believe it or not this mainstay venue of the more upscale Off-Off scene may become the latest member of "Another One Bites The Dust" club of doomed downtown spaces.

The building that houses the Ohio is being sold, and in a few weeks or months the Ohio Theatre will almost certainly cease to exist. Robert Lyons, artistic director of Soho Think Tank, a nonprofit group that administers the Ohio and produces the OBIE-award winning Ice Factory Festival, describes the situation: "In one way or another, our days are numbered. It's just a matter of what that number is. We're trying to finish the season lined up through June. We could possibly still be here in the summer for Ice Factory '09. It could all end as soon as the end of January."

Read why in the Voice online. Alexis S. there prognosticates:

While institutions such as the Performing Garage, the Drawing Center, and Here Arts Center remain, the Ohio's closing--and its likely conversion into a retail space--further completes Soho's transformation from artists' haven to shopper's paradise.

A rundown of the space's illustrious history is available at the Soho Think Tank site.

Highbrow Sells?

Who knew? Two of the biggest hits on B'way now are the Royal Court doing Chekhov and a directors'-theatre reinterpretation of All My Sons. They both just recouped.

Of course, one features the wife of Tom Cruise and the other...Brits!

"Corpus Christi"...Again

New Yorkers may have noticed last month a tiny Off-Off revival of the once-controversial Terrence McNally play Corpus Christi, one that pretty much passed without comment. And what a nice sign of progress that was. Those of us around in '98 remember well the imbroglio and media circus that led Manhattan Theatre Club first to cancel the play's premiere (after threats of violence) and then reschedule it after gay activists and theatre artists forced them to come to their senses. Much of the controversy was stoked by deliberate misinformation about the play spread in the press by people who had not read it. Not many folks came out looking good after this--not even McNally,who behaved with bravery and dignity throughout the controversy only to see his play slammed by critics as lame, thanks to the unbelievably high expectations the mess created for shock value.

All the playwright wanted to do was something countless Christian writers have done through the centuries: make Jesus' story their own. In McNally's case, that meant finding Christ in the life of an outcast gay man in a small southern town. (He himself having grown up Catholic and gay in Corpus Christi, TX.) Now to some people Jesus means nothing more than Puritan sexual mores, fire and brimstone punishments for everyday trivial transgressions, and utter subservience to anything commanded in his name from on high. To others, though, the meaning of Christ is in the suffering of the afflicted, in the ministering to the poor and dejected, and in the hopes stirred in even the most hopeless of cases. More than one good Christian has maintained throughout the ages that if Christ were alive today--bodily at least--he would surely be with the most hated and frowned upon elements of society. Which is exactly where McNally puts him in this play.

This essential conflict between two different interpretations of Jesus is as old as Christianity itself. Is he human or divine? Is he a peacemaker or a moral crusader? Sure, certain organs of "authoritative" doctrine like the Vatican or "Dr." James Dobson have pronounced supposedly definitive answers to these questions, but that hasn't stopped people around the world who really do consider themselves Christians and take genuine solace in the teachings of Christ from coming up with their own answers--and loving Jesus none the less for them.

So why am I returning to this old, old fight? For me personally, the '98 "Corpus Christi" affair was a kind of awakening--both a theatrical and political awakening in realizing that theatre not only can still matter, but was also in dire need of advocacy against those who will use it as a political football at a moment's notice. Those who love the theatre and understand it need to be vigilant against those who mischaracterize and demonize it for their political ends--and among those I include not just hatemongering puritanical rabblerousers but the major media outlets that enable them and perpetuate their falsehoods.

Which brings me to the strange relation between the respectable mainstream media and one William Donohue and his Catholic League, the instigators of the original Corpus Christi affair, who, lo and behold, are at it again. Rather than letting the play continue its ride into dramatic obscurity and footnote-land, they've brought into the news once again everything the media does not get about the dramatist's calling.

Mr. Donohue is no stranger to those of us who follow culture-war/censorship fracases, though he certainly is a stranger to civil discourse. He is the ultimate media whore in the temple of culture-war journalism, the go-to-guy for an outrageous quote in any story. Invite him to a debate on morality in movies, for instance, and you get: "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular." Or, even better: "If you asked [some Hollywood actors] to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face."

(These and other quotables--oh so many of them--are readily available on Media Matters, who have an entire virtual file on the guy.)

What a delightful kook! you may say. And you'd be right. Except that his latest screed against Corpus Christi has been given surprisingly credibility by none other than the "Public Editor" of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt.

I don't want to bestow too much importance on Mr. Hoyt's columns. I know I don't make a habit of turning to its sporadic appearance on the Sunday op-ed page every other week or so. And neither apparently do many others since over a month went by before I heard anything of his entering the fray of L'Affaire Corpus. So thanks to Dan Kois on NY Mag's Vulture blog for pointing it out.

Before posting on this I swore I would try to control myself and keep it short and to the point, and let the links speak for themselves.

But sorry, dear reader. I have too much--nay, ten years' worth--to get off my chest. So please indulge me a full and proper fisking.

Back on October 22, the Times' Jason Zinoman (who I admit I know and think well of) reviewed said revival of the infamous play--which was playing a short run at the tiny Rattlestick Theatre in the West Village, brought in by a Los Angeles group 108 Productions. Zinoman's take was that this was still "one of Mr. McNally’s minor works" and no great shakes as drama, but that this more modest staging--performed without the swirl of controversy about it--brought out some affecting themes and, yes, "reverence" that was lost the first time around.

Hardly a "money" review. But at least it was reviewed at all, which is not a given with such small productions. And after probably getting some nice ticket sales out of it, 108 Productions soon packed up its kit and went back west having completed their mission of finally giving a kind of closure to this play in the city that gave it such a tortured (and hardly immaculate) birth.

No, not so fast, cries Saint William the Offended. On October 23, the very next day after the review ran, he fires off another of his incoherent Press Releases. After acknowledging, "Because the play is not at a prominent location this time, the league has ignored it" (good to know that showcase productions get ignored by interest groups as well as the media!), Donohue maintained that the "bigotry" of Zinoman's review forced him out of his lair and into--much as he hates it-- the media spotlight.

If only the New York Times thought of Catholics as if we were all gay, we’d have no problem with the newspaper. The vile play which they love—not for artistic purposes but for its assault on Catholicism—features the Jesus character, Joshua, saying to his apostles things like, ‘F---your mother, F--- your father, F--- God.’ The Jesus-character is dubbed ‘King of the Queers’ and the script is replete with sexual and scatological comments. At one point, a character named Philip asks the Jesus-figure to perform fellatio on him.

Let's just stop there for a second. So many places to begin, but why not this: Why is such a play that Donohue describes (which is barely recognizable as McNally's, by the way) an "assault on Catholicism" as opposed to Christianity in general? I have never understood how Donohue gets away with accusing any less-than-reverent remark against anything biblical as distinctly "Anti -Catholic bigotry." Making cracks about the Pope wearing a funny hat--ok, that's specifically a jab at Catholics. So might incendiary comments about celibate clergy, observing all of the original sacraments, praying for the intercession of Saints, transubstantiation doctrines...you know, stuff about Catholicism.

But last I checked the Gospels are not the privileged property of the Vatican alone. Arguably they are not even the province of just Christians--one could say Jesus belongs to all of us, at least as an integral character in Western culture. But whoa, that's too radical a step for now, so let's stick to professed Christians for the moment. My question is: who died and made Bill Donohue spokesman for all Chirstendom. (And don't Protestants and Greek & Russian Orthodox resent his claiming all sacrilegious outrage for his own sect?)

Now onto the gay-bashing. Aside from the syntax of Donohue's first sentence just making no sense to me, clearly his message is: Anything gay is offensive, and even if you, New York Times, are pro-gay, you're still offending me by not accommodating my hatred of gayness and my church's teaching of gayness as evil.
Then we get to the dramatic criticism. Nice to see him employ the old mainstay of anti-theatrical prejudice that everything said in the dialogue of a play , by any character, clearly represents what the author himself believes. This sounds funny, I know. But think of how often you hear that and how none of these outside observers seem to get the very idea of "character." Do we get the context of the "fuck them" lines? Of course not. Do we find out Jesus' answer to the offer of a blowjob is? Why bother! It's enough of a sin that HE is asked--even by a fictional character.

Cherry picking quotes is par for the course in political argument, of course. So I'm hardly surprised here. (Though I assure you the above Donohue classic about movie stars "sodomizing their mothers" is perfectly in context.) Which is why it's reprehensible that his defenders in more responsible quarters let him get away with that. More on that later.

Regarding the NYT review itself, notice the ease (and rhetorical laziness) with which Donohue equates any not-negative thing said about the play with some nefarious gay agenda. Despite Zinoman's clear accounting of the play's dramaturgical merits, the only reason anyone would like this play apparently is if they themselves are gay, or they love gay people. (Which I guess makes them gay.) He goes on:

Yesterday, Jason Zinoman of the New York Times applauded the play for its ‘reverent spin on the Jesus story.’ One wonders how debased a performance against Catholicism must become before this guy would call it irreverent. Moreover, one wonders what this guy would say if the play substituted Martin Luther King for Jesus. On October 19, Mark Blankenship [in an earlier NYT feature] said those who protested the play in 1998 offered ‘stark reminders of lingering homophobia.’ So when anti-Catholic homosexuals like McNally feature Jesus having oral sex with the boys, and Catholics object, it’s not McNally who is the bigot—it’s those protesting Catholics. One wonders what this guy would say if a Catholic made a play about Barney Frank showing him to be a morally destitute lout who ripped off the taxpayers. Would he blame objecting gays for Catholic bashing?

There's one very simple disconnect here that underlies the whole stupid fight. And since no one else seems to be spelling it out, allow me: If you're a homophobe (or, I suppose, just a strict adherent of the Vatican party line regarding all matters sexual) then, yes, any suggestion of a Christ figure engaging in gay sex is "irreverent," and a slander against the savior. However, if you're not a homophobe (or you happen to be gay yourself, like McNally) maybe, just maybe the idea of a gay Jesus is not so offensive.

This is where Donohue's endless bonkers analogies fall apart--notwithstanding their made-for-tv rhetorical kick. His strawmen of anti-MLK or anti-Barney Frank (talk about pulling out of nowhere!) stories are just that, strawmen. And totally irrelevant to the case at hand. Just like back in '98 I remember so well his constant invocation of an imagined play "Shylock and Sambo" (''about gay Jewish slave masters who sodomize their obsequious black slaves") which he postulated as the exact moral equivalent of McNally's. I would understand the comparison if Terence McNally were not a mild-mannered gay Catholic but actually some anti-Papist homophobe Jew or Muslim who deliberately set out to write the worst slander he could spread about the Lord and Savior.

The author behind the imagined "Shylock and Sambo" thing is clearly a racist Nazi who wishes nothing other than to slander. But Corpus Christi is actually written by a man who is both Catholic and gay. I know that's inconceivable (and excommunicable) to you, Bill, but to those who truly want to understand the play, it's essential. Because once you know that the play surely does seem to intend to celebrate both the spirit of Jesus and true love, whether it be gay or straight. The only reason one wouldn't see that in the play is if one were just a homophobe who insists everything gay is sinful, if not evil.

Is not an essential qualification of hatespeech the actual presence of, you know, hate? In this case, though, hate appears nowhere on stage, but only in the audience. Or, to be more exact, only in Bill Donohue's mind.

And make no mistake, hatespeech is precisely what Donohue is accusing McNally of. (Hence the word, "bigotry" and the Shylock/Sambo references.) Which is why I stress the principle of authorial "intention" at all--often a problematic issue. Normally I'm open to not limiting a play's meaning simply to stated intentions of the author. But here those intentions are exactly what are on trial. And I hardly think Donohue & co. are suddenly going all French-deconstructionist-literary-theory us.

Ok, so Donohue's arguments are patently incorrect, misleading, and ridiculous. Still it's a free country he has a right to say them, post them on his site, fax them en masse to his heart's content. Surely no one--especially in this Age of Obama--would take this seriously?

Well, enter Clark Hoyt, "Public Editor" (i.e. ombudsman, watchdog, referee) of the New York Times. Hardly an accident: in his October 23 press release, Donohue pointedly called upon his membership to barrage Hoyt and supplied his email address. Sure enough, on November 9:

Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, called “Corpus Christi” a “vile play” and charged that The Times liked it “not for artistic purposes but for its assault on Catholicism.” He urged his members to write to the public editor, and more than 150 did. “I am outraged that The Times would review such a disgusting and revolting play,” wrote Brian Tennyson of Lakewood Ranch, Fla. Others accused The Times of regularly ignoring the sensibilities of Catholics and even church-bashing, and said it would never treat other religions the way it treats Catholicism.

Behold modern-day interest-group politics and media manipulation in action. What a spontaneous burst of protests! Surely there must be something significant going on! I would understand taking up the issue if, say, the Vatican or the NYC Archdiocese wrote the Times or issued a statement. But to my knowledge they didn't. So right away, Hoyt confers on Donohue a respectability and credibility it was news to me he ever had.

Hoyt of course distinguishes himself from the radical Donohue. Nor does he see the point in engaging the specific debate or content regarding the play. (I mean, do we expect him to be some literary critic, too? The man's only human!) Instead he uses his perch as the Times' in-house finger-wagger to fault Zinoman's review for essentially not giving some kind of equal time, or at least deference, to the Donohue position.

[Zinoman] seemed to find it a bit more appealing [than Ben Brantley's 1998 review], saying “there are moments of hard-won sentiment that will win over the biggest skeptic.”
Zinoman called the play “an earnest and reverent spin on the Jesus story, with some soft-spoken, gay-friendly politics thrown in.” Donohue was infuriated because he said no play that depicted Jesus as sexually active, whether with men or women, could be “reverent.” Zinoman defended his description. He said the play was “very faithful” to the plot of the New Testament. But he said it had a “point of view. It’s certainly pro-gay-marriage and it’s intolerant of prejudice against gay people.” 

But homosexual acts and same-sex marriage are against the teachings of the Catholic Church, and it seems to me that failing to acknowledge that central tension is almost failing to tell readers what the play is about. In it, one of the disciples quotes Scripture as saying that it is “an abomination” for a man to lie with a man, and “they shall be put to death.” The Jesus character, named Joshua, calls it “a terrible passage” and quotes instead, “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good.” 

Had the review acknowledged, even in passing, why the play could be disturbing or challenging to many Christians, even those who do not agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church, I think it would have left Donohue no ground to stand on, and he told me he would not have complained.

First, I invite you to read Zinoman's review in full and see if it at all resembles the review Hoyt characterizes. (I linked to it above. Here it is again.) Zinoman devotes, I kid you not, the entire first three paragraphs to the history and nature of the '98 controversy. This is the context he's framing the review in, no question. It would be impossible, as Hoyt suggests, for any reader to come away from this review not learning how controversial the play has been.

No, what Hoyt wants is something more, I'm afraid. He wants Zinoman to concede justification for offense. So instead of saying, the play turns out not to be so objectively offensive after all in these times, he's apparently supposed to say something like: Although offensive to many, the play has some dramatic merit (to heathens).

Pretty scary implications there for the practice of theatre criticism in difficult times. How many points of view must be acknowledged and deferred to in any given piece of criticism (which is opinion journalism, by the way) covering religious material? Need we make concessions in reviewing a production of, say, Inherit the Wind, to those fond of Creationist Museums and Sarah Palin?

While Hoyt does reference Donohue's "overheated" nature (and gets some mild quote from someone to that effect as an obligatory journalistic counterpoint) he does Bill one better in indulging in yet more reckless exegesis of the play. First he seems totally clueless about the Christian-humanist tradition (yes, there once was such a thing) the play really stems from and just classifies it as yet more hatespeech:

Peter Steinfels, the co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture and a religion columnist for The Times, said much of “the arts over the last century or so have been adversarial” to the church and traditional morality, creating a problem for secular media. “Corpus Christi” fits squarely in that tradition.

Well, see above for why the play does not necessarily fit the tradition of hating morality and the church. (Gee, did he ever think of ringing up Terence McNally to see what is influences really were?)

Then comes the misleading characterization of the play's details:

Set in Corpus Christi, Tex., where McNally grew up, it turns the story of Jesus and his disciples into a parable about the persecution of gays. Along the way, it pushes what have to be hot buttons for many Christians. Jesus is born in a shabby motel room; loud, abusive heterosexual sex takes place in the room next door; Joseph is a boorish, profane carpenter; Mary isn’t much of a mother; Jesus discovers he is gay and has sex (not on stage) with the young men who become his disciples; he performs miracles, officiates at a gay wedding, is ultimately betrayed by Judas and is crucified.

Stupid question, Clark, but: why is updating the manger to a "shabby motel room" automatically a "hot button"? Would a Trump Tower suite be more appropriate?

Kidding aside, this is a huge point. McNally's re-setting of the iconic scene deliberately emphasizes the poverty of Mary and Joseph, and Jesus' humble origins. Unless Hoyt is suggesting that it's ok to assume all children born in Motel 6's, with loud "heterosexual sex" through the walls will turn out evil (just imagine if the sex sounds were not hetero!), then this argument is absurd.

(Godard's similarly controversial 1985 film Hail Mary also came under fire for daring cast Joseph character as--sacre bleu!--a gas station attendant. Here again, a moving attempt to locate the emotional story of the gospels among the meager, sometimes ugly lives of modern day commoners was instantly denounced as sacrilege on its face.)

The vilification of the play's other details is also equally intellectually lazy. However "boorish" there's nothing new about the long tradition of depicting Joseph as a "common man." And as for the sex acts themselves (which I guess is all that anyone really cares about here) note the parenthetical "not on stage." As anyone in the theatre knows, the choice a playwright makes over what to show and what not can be quite significant. Donohue's original libel against the play--not based on any reading of the script and yet circulated widely throughout the media--was that it depicted "Jesus sodomizing his disciples." Sounds pretty "hot button," doesn't it? Well no such thing happens in the play. Is the assumption that because the character is gay that if he is making love with any of these men it must be buggering? (Since that's what those homos do.)

Maybe someone out there who really knows the script can set the record straight on just what sex acts McNally "confirms," but, again, the whole on stage/off stage distinction as crucial. Just as Rudy Guilliani convinced a nation (just one year after the original Corpus controversy) that a Chris Offili painting of a woman surrounded by found-object ornaments had "smeared the Virgin Mary in elephant dung," the description of the artistic event itself grossly (and deliberately) misrepresents the actual audience experience.

Think of it: wouldn't you have assumed from Donohue's descriptions of the play that it shows some guy dressed in full Jesus regalia bending over St Peter and rogering him in a downstage center spotlight? Yes, ok, that would be worthy of some qualification in my review. But guess what, Bill (and, now, Clark): that's not the play Terence McNally wrote.

What Hoyt's really up to here, though, is not defending Donohue's crazy theology, but just another distressing case of news media bending over backward not to appear liberal--or even secular. It not necessarily "liberal" (as in commie) to refuse to apologize for observing secular standards in an officially religion-neutral state. But Hoyt sees a lesson in "the bigger picture" here:

It is tempting for a secular and culturally liberal newsroom like The Times’s to dismiss such objections, especially because many appear to have come from people who neither saw the play nor read in full what The Times said about it. No self-respecting newspaper is going to avoid writing about a controversial work of art because it might offend some segment of the public. That would go against everything a newspaper stands for — examination of anything that happens in the public square — and Donohue told me he agreed that The Times should have covered the “Corpus Christi” revival. He just did not like what the newspaper said about it.

...[B]ut I wound up thinking that he had put his finger on an interesting issue: how a newspaper like The Times, which devotes great space and energy to covering the arts, should deal with the frequent collisions between art and religion. The argument, as it did with “Corpus Christi” 10 years ago, often gets framed as a First Amendment fight between those championing freedom of speech and those seeking to stifle speech they object to. But lost in all of that can be the deeper story of the spiritual and religious tensions that gave rise to the art in the first place and the sensibilities of religious readers who may be struggling with aspects of their own faith.

So, first, Hoyt simply outs Zinoman (and, presumably, his editor) as "secular and culturally liberal" without citing any evidence. Then he gives credence to protests based on myth not fact. And finally he dismisses "first amendment" squabbles as less important as the right of professionally-offended media whores like William Donohue to be offended.

As disturbing as all that is, it's not nearly as disturbing to me as the overriding point so chillingly captured in the op-ed's title: "The Perilous Intersection of Art and Religion." Is not the subtle implication here just to kind of stay away from such "intersections" and "collisions"? Or at least, when forced to, walk very very gingerly?

I can see this as prudent career advise from your Editor-in-Chief or the paper's corporate board, who want to avoid the kinds of bullying letter/email campaigns Donohue is famous for. But this outlook conveniently sidesteps the question of truth.

Maybe, just maybe, the most productive and enlightening way to deal with such conflicts is allow both the open microphone of protest as well as some well-informed context from experts. In this case not just experts on religion (that is, theology, not just sloganeering)--but on theatre as well. And on gay life and literature, too. Rather than placate and mollify the professional culture warriors, how about seizing the teachable moment, Clark?

One more dramatic criticism point, I think, gets to the heart of the matter, which is McNally's rights as a writer in a pluralistic society.

As even Hoyt notes, McNally calls his central character not Jesus but "Joshua." I don't think this should be ignored as incidental. For what the playwright has deliberately and carefully done here is not to simply dramatize The Gospels (a la the Zeffereli "Jesus of Nazzareth" mini-series) but to construct an alternate, parallel universe for the gospels. Objectors may say "Jesus/Joshua same difference"--but I say, yes: difference! It's a simple choice, a small gesture, but it means something. Just like the stage setting is not some Sunday school rendering of Holy Land, Inc., but a recognizably contemporary, albeit unseemly, world of a small American town. That "shabby hotel" is not an insult but actually a gesture of worship, of intimacy with the gospels, bringing it home. But more importantly, it is a reimagining, as if McNally's is saying--if not screaming, so unsubtle is it--this is not the Holy Land in 4BC, ok? Put that aside and appreciate this as a different story.

It's notable how other controversial Jesus dramas make similar gestures of concession or suspension of belief (in all meanings of the word). Monty Python's glorious Life of Brian not only uses a different name for its protagonist, but begins with the birth of said Brian in the next manger down from Jesus' (where the wisemen visit by mistake, and eventually take back their gifts). Scorsese's  Last Temptation of Christ got into so much trouble because of a scene showing Jesus copulating with Mary Magdalene... in a dream sequence. (The vision of that dream is the "last temptation" as conceived of in Kazanzakis' book and faithfully depicted as such in the film. Needless to say, Jesus rejects the dream and finally accepts his own sacrifice.)

It's also worth pointing out the similar strategy employed by Salman Rushdie in Satanic Verses, where because of an extended fantasy sequence (by an overtly fantasist magical-realist novelist) Mohammed's wives seem to be envisioned, provisionally, as prostitutes. (A good summary is provided in the novel's Wikipedia page.)

I stress this point of what I'll call the disavowal of the "fictional gesture" (Known at the end of movie credits as the "all resemblances to living persons are incidental" line.) Some say it's a cop-out, but I say without the acceptance of that convention, without that little zone of freedom where nothing is out of bounds, we cannot really call ourselves a free society.

I do not raise the spectre of Rushdie and his fatwa casually. Not only have threats of violence marred the Corpus protests before, despite Hoyt's oddly dismissive description of it ("the Manhattan Theater Club said there were threats to burn down the theater, kill the staff and 'exterminate' McNally.") I don't think MTC, as careless as they are financially, would have shelled out for metal detectors otherwise.

But remember what Rushdie came up against was basically the question of who owns "Mohammed." The fanatics who condemned him represent the same forces behind the threats against newspapers reprinting the Mohammed cartoons a few years back. Such policing of the image and depiction of The Savior--whatever the religion--runs contrary to a free society. Period. Some still insist that Jesus only be defined by His sexual preferences or lack thereof. Others choose to pay tribute to other aspects of his legacy: compassion, caring, unconditional love. Why, Clark Hoyt, must we pay our respects to one over the other? No one owns the copyright on Jesus or Mohammed--not in a truly free society, at least.

And therefore, Mr. Hoyt, why must Jason Zinoman privilege and adhere to just one sect's version of a common property?

Conclusion: Why this matters

The theological and dramaturgical contentions of this controversy are a decade old already. The new issue raised now specifically regards theatre criticism and the rights of a critic as a writer.

Yes, Clark Hoyt may not wield much measurable power within the New York Times. But let's remember why he's even there, and why there is such a thing as a "Public Editor" there. The position was created, remember, in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, at a time when the paper's journalistic ethics were severely questioned. The Public Editor, then, became a signal not only to the reader but the journalistic community that the Times would constantly subject their practices to review, and in public view. As it has evolved the column seems to be part "devil's advocate," part reader's advocate (a kind of "ombudsman," as other papers call such figures), and an all around in-house gadfly. But generally the mission of The Public Editor is to speak for the highest standards in journalistic standards and practices.

Which is why I--as a sometime critic myself--find it disturbing to find such an authority suggest that a critic is not an "opinion journalist" but must constantly be on the watch to mollify the objections of those who disagree on politically radioactive issues. Must even a theatre critic devote "equal time" to all sides of any controversial issue raised in the performance at hand?

Again, I think it's clear Zinoman provided quite sufficient background info (within the limits of a 500-word review, mind you) to determine why some devout Christians (not just Catholics) might take offense to the play. But how far is Zinoman supposed to go if he himself does not genuinely find offense? At what point can the critic's own sensibilities be free to express themselves? Why must he give voice to strident religious beliefs that are not his own? Hoyt goes to great lengths in his column to argue that you don't have to be homophobic to be offended by McNally's play. To which I respond: really? And if you answer: well, the Vatican's says homosexuality is wrong, so that's what Catholics have to believe, then I say: And that's not homophobic? What other term would you suggest?

Agreed: no journalist, even a columnist, should set out to directly offend groups of people based race or religion (or, shall we add, sexual preference?). But the question remains: what constitutes a legitimate offense? Must we apologize for any statement that sends the apoplectic William Donohue headfirst into a media frenzy?

Now that's a good question for The Public Editor.


PS. The Public Editor column did run some subsequent readers' letters on Hoyt's column on November 22. Some dissents, but generally I am not encouraged by the selected responses.

Theatre Chat on NPR

Here's a 30 minute discussion on WNYC's Leonard Lopate show between Paula Vogel, Bartlett Sher, and Denver Theatre Center's AD Kent Thompson on What's the Deal with Regional Theatre??? Or something like that.

Mildly interesting. But I'm torn. On the one hand, yay for Lopate even devoting this much air time to a theatre discussion in the mainstream media not promoting "Grease." These are three smart, formidable theatre artists who--though quite successful and well known to theatre geeks--are not household names. On the other hand: how do you have a 30 minute discussion about regional theatre vs New York without ever broaching the difference between nonprofit and commercial economics? (i.e. never defining whether "New York theatre" just means Broadway, and never clarifying that most "Off Broadway" is nonprofit.)

But I guess I found it more valuable than Mike Daisey, who likens the conversation to "listening to the activity director on the aft deck of the Titanic discuss what we'll be working on during this first exciting translatlantic journey."

There is a God

Grease is closing.

Profit Without Risk?

NY Times theatre news today leads with The Public's new deal with Broadway. After missing out on profits for the commercial transfer of the original "Hair" forty years ago, and after almost bankrupting the institution to play Broadway Producer themselves (on two George Wolfe follies), they've finally figured out how to have artistic control, get credit and a cut, and not stake anything!

But how, you ask?

According to the current leadership, what’s different about the new deal is that the relationship between producing partners is spelled out in a contract, not based on a handshake. The Public will have an equal say in all artistic and business matters, from the marketing campaign to scenic design, Andrew Hamingson, the Public’s executive director, said.

He added that the Public would get a much greater percentage of the net profits, about twice the amount it would have received under previous royalty agreements. Not every detail has been worked out because money is still being raised for the production, which is expected to cost $6.5 million.

That's about all the detail you get here, unfortunately. I'm still curious how, gee, no one ever seemed to have thought about it before!

I guess if they can make it work, more power to them. But what are the implications of this new model for the future of commercial/nonprofit collaborations and "enhancement"?

An Indie Theatre Guide

The race is on at New York Magazine to replace Jeremy McCarter--who has taken some Frank Rich-esque cultural criticism gig at Newsweek.

(Because just having a theatre critic would be so passe for them. Unlike, say, print magazine newsweeklies...)

Eric Grode (formerly of the former New York Sun) makes an entry by introducing New York Mag readers to a world beyond Broadway-and even Manhattan. Familiar names, perhaps, to regular readers of this blog, but a useful primer for those still stuck in midtown, or from out of town.

Genltemen and ladies...start your engines!

The Acting Profession Today

"The weekly acting salary at the big Seattle theatres was between $700 and $900 back in the early nineties. The price range for acting at the big theatres in 2008 is . . . between $700 and $900. It hasn't changed in over fifteen years! In Seattle the median income is now $45,000 a year. Last year, working all the time, I made $25,000. At the age of fifty-four. And $3,000 of that was unemployment."

-Seattle stage actor (now, ex-Seattle actor) Laurence Ballard on why he's packed it in for a full time college gig.