The Playgoer: About Those "Viewpoints"...

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Monday, September 19, 2005

About Those "Viewpoints"...

After the Times' glowing profile of Tina Landau at work, one might be shocked to read the lede from Helen Shaw's review in the Sun today:

In a misguided bid for "magic realism," Kirsten Childs populates her piece with
talking, shape shifting, time-traveling dolphins. Dramaturgically, the thing is an ad hoc mess of shoddy plot points. Musically, it's repetitive, forgettable, and lyrically lame. And this production directed by Tina Landau isn't even funny. This is a musical about homoerotic dolphins doing martial arts, and it isn't funny.

(To read the rest you'll have to get a Sun subscription.) I'll wait for someone to defend the show as a bold experiment. But meanwhile... ouch!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ouch? Helen Shaw has written some of the most offensively, inappropriately mean reviews I have ever read. She makes me sick.

Anonymous said...

What is wrong with Helen Shaw?
What is A.R.T. teaching their dramaturgs? What is it in dull people with no humor that makes them want to be a critic?
Sad but true. Helen Shaw is as poisonous as her pen.