Big River @ Encores- Page 3
Big River @ Encores
#50Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 10:25am
Frank Rich has shared a letter written by Jack Viertel, the artistic director of Encores!, in response to the Times review. It's scathing.
(This a link to a Facebook post- unsure if that means some may not be able to view it; please let me know)
Is the show to be punished for taking that step because those musical moments are not expressed by fully developed characters? The distribution of roles reflects the original novel. The unwillingness of the authors of the musical to betray Twain’s original characters and the structure of his work would be hard to fault. And if Twain, writing in his own time, is now to be discredited for not being here to revise his work to 2017’s political preferences, what am I to make of Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), John LaTouche (Cabin in the Sky) or Truman Capote (House of Flowers) and all of the others?
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#51Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 10:32am
Viertel and Rich (who, let's face it, is a pretty good writer but has never been the most astute thinker) exhibit the kind of white fragility that usually rears its ugly head whenever white people (especially white men) are asked to examine how white and black stories are told. It's also extremely disquieting for the artistic director of a major theatrical series to essentially call for the dismissal of a critic because he disagrees with what she wrote. Laura is hardly the only writer to make this argument (see Jesse's review), so it raises the question of why Rich and Viertel are going after her with such zeal.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#52Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 10:39am
That's a very entertaining letter from Viertel; I would agree that Laura Collins-Hughes appears to be one of those millions who have no more insight than that of the average college freshman, who, after one semester of Psych and Sociology, firmly knows that they are the most enlightened member of their family ever. This kind of solipsistic fool believes that they represent an intellectual and moral pinnacle in the development of mankind, missing the fact that they're just another primate on the road to insignificant oblivion.
I disagree, however, with Viertel's sweeping claim that the original production of Big River "gave musical voice to a rich black gospel and blues tradition in a raw form previously unheard on Broadway." He risks losing credibilty in the entire letter merely to satisfy the usual misguided (and hubris-driven) desire to stake a claim to being "the first." Big River was not a first for anything, except perhaps the first (and last) time Roger Miller wrote for the theatre.
#53Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 12:25pm
AC126748 said: "Viertel and Rich (who, let's face it, is a pretty good writer but has never been the most astute thinker) exhibit the kind of white fragility that usually rears its ugly head whenever white people (especially white men) are asked to examine how white and black stories are told. It's also extremely disquieting for the artistic director of a major theatrical series to essentially call for the dismissal of a critic because he disagrees with what she wrote. Laura is hardly the only writer to make this argument (see Jesse's review), so it raises the question of why Rich and Viertel are going after her with such zeal."
I'm with you on that- this seems highly unprofessional on Viertel's part. Of course he has a right to disagree with the review, but it's uncalled for to single out a particular critic, especially when other critics had similar issues.
Not to mention, the idea that Big River is the first show to give voice to a black tradition of gospel and blues on Broadway is pure nonsense. It suggests to me that Viertel wrote this without really thinking much about it- and maybe it would have been wiser for him to not have published it at all.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
#54Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 12:38pm
I don't know. Even though they most likely share sentiments, Collins and Green produced very different reviews, with Green's far more nuanced and providing far more contextualization of the original novel- ultimately arguing that the show itself is poor adaptation. Collins arrives at a similar conclusion, certainly, but frames it in a far less effective way.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
neonlightsxo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/29/08
#55Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 12:39pm
The Viertel letter feels like a personal attack on Ms. Collins-Hughes rather than a criticism of her piece. Doesn't help his case that she's a minority as a female theater critic, and a stringer.
#56Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 12:51pm
Viertel's letter is definitely a personal attack, and it's deeply mean-spirited in a way that Laura's review wasn't at all. He belittles her intelligence and asserts that she went into the production with an agenda and an axe to grind. I do find it hard to believe that he would come after a male critic in much the same way. There is a tone to Viertel's letter that should be instantly recognizable to any minority person who's had to endure a white man explaining to them why their perception of something is invalid and wrong.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Updated On: 2/13/17 at 12:51 PM
neonlightsxo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/29/08
#58Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 1:01pm
I'm honestly shocked by the outsized reaction to her review when the questions she raised about the show were relatively mild, and certainly less harsh than Jesse Green. I find it more than a little disturbing that Jack Viertel and Frank Rich seem to be going after her with such zeal, particularly Viertel, who seems to be arguing for her dismissal from the Times. And I absolutely agree that it's at least in part because she's a woman who's writing in what is still a very white, very male branch of journalism.
Kimbo
Featured Actor Joined: 4/8/08
#59Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 3:00pm
Oh my Good Lord, the heavens-to-betsy pearl-clutching on behalf of this poor unjustly maligned so-called critic.
I'm honestly shocked that mine appears to be a minority reaction on here, but the letter was a well-reasoned, well-founded and entirely justified response to a review that was one of the most inept pieces I've ever seen in the New York Times.
Maybe it's just the circles I travel in but everyone I know this weekend - male, female, gay, straight, African-American, Latina, feminist and, I guess some would say, "white privileged" - was talking about what an embarrassment that review was for the Times... because, even worse than being horribly written, it committed the sin of being utterly ignorant.
I agree with Kad that Jesse Green makes some of the same points in a more nuanced and less offensive way. If anyone thinks that makes my viewpoint "disturbing" because Green is a man and Collins-Hughes a woman, then that's on you, and is one more example of the bend-over-backwards bleeding-heart-liberal P.C. crap that was the foundation for her review, and is what Viertel is justifiably attacking in the first place. If anyone thinks he wouldn't have written the same letter if the author's name were "Lenny Collins-Hughes", they're not giving Viertel enough credit, or exhibiting themselves much common sense. If anyone thinks that her sentence "I'm not arguing for rewriting Twain... but right now [it] doesn't seem to have much to add" isn't essentially code for "Twain's source material has no place in the world right now" and isn't a dangerous way of thinking, halfway down the road to censorship, then I fear more for our society then I did on January 20th.
Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is every bit as relevant now as Orwell's "1984" - and what's more, like any classic, both of those works always will be. Viertel probably didn't need to call for her dismissal because, given how many people I know wrote furious and dismayed letters to the Times this weekend, I think it's safe to say her name will not be relevant much longer at all.
#60Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 3:26pm
"Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is every bit as relevant now as Orwell's "1984"..."
Also, calling for censorship of Twain's work because it may not talk about race issues in the precise way some people today want to hear it - well, that smacks of the world of "1984" and NewSpeak itself.
#61Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 3:44pm
Who's talking about censorship, exactly?
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#62Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 3:51pm
Censorship: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
I would say that writing that Twain's work is "an awkward fit for the moment," and dismissively reducing it to "the story of a white boy waking up to injustice, then painting himself as a hero" is a veiled/mild call for abandoning it, even with the amusingly disingenuous caveat "I’m not arguing for rewriting Twain or for consigning “Big River” to the scrap heap." Which is then followed by an enormous and significant "But."
#63Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 3:58pm
And this is the point wherein we devolve to circular reasoning: any discussion of race as it relates to this story is marked as an attempt to censor. If that's the avenue you want to take, go right ahead; I'm not going to participate in such a specious argument.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#64Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 4:00pm
Oh, I agree. That "discussion" wore itself out long ago. I was just answering your question. I think we can safely consider ourselves out of it now.
#65Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 4:04pm
Kad said: "Frank Rich has shared a letter written by Jack Viertel, the artistic director of Encores!, in response to the Times review. It's scathing.
(This a link to a Facebook post- unsure if that means some may not be able to view it; please let me know)
Is the show to be punished for taking that step because those musical moments are not expressed by fully developed characters? The distribution of roles reflects the original novel. The unwillingness of the authors of the musical to betray Twain’s original characters and the structure of his work would be hard to fault. And if Twain, writing in his own time, is now to be discredited for not being here to revise his work to 2017’s political preferences, what am I to make of Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), John LaTouche (Cabin in the Sky) or Truman Capote (House of Flowers) and all of the others?
"
" It’s true of Twain’s novel, but it’s worth noting that Jim is, in fact, the most important black character in all of American literature of the 19th and early 20th century. Isn’t that enough?"
Seriously?
Kimbo
Featured Actor Joined: 4/8/08
#66Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 4:06pm
What Newintown said. And right there's the difference between Jesse Green's review and Laura Collins-Hughes's review:
Green's is basically "Why Big River [the show] Will Never Be Revived Again On Broadway" - he may have a point there, but it's clearly a personal prediction.
The tone of Collins-Hughes's, however, leans more towards "Why Huckleberry Finn [the story] SHOULD Never Be Considered Relevant Again [or at least not for a long long while]", and that's where the creep of censorship steals in.
If that makes it seem like this conversation is devolving, or that any part of this line of reasoning is 'specious', then of course it's your right to not participate. And I didn't realize we were arguing. But I think if you give an honest read to both of those similarly toned, similarly uncomfortable reviews, it seems pretty clear which one of those critics' views, and which side of the so-called argument, is dangerous and specious.
#67Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 5:04pm
Comden Green said: "Way to jump to conclusions. Railing against a reviewer Attacking her for being PC. Calling her a clown. After one review. (still not sure what's wrong with looking at the play with "new eyes" and noticing something the rest of us hadn't noticed )
She he made a point. Her point had some validity. A point that you happen to disagree with. That's fine isn't it? Doesn't make her a clown or a purveyor of PC You disagree. Sheesh. Why all the anger?"
Wow, I made a one sentence comment and that equals "railing" . I wonder what you take is of Jack Viertel's letter which is beautifully written. My favorite part "It comes down to whether the Times is willing to publish ill-informed, politically motivated nonsense based on social and cultural trendiness and consider it serious criticism. I certainly hope not."
https://www.facebook.com/frank.rich.315/posts/10154801399545485
#68Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 5:08pm
I still think it's unprofessional and petty for any producer to publish a letter targeting a specific critic, especially when the review was positive for the production. Before the censorship crowd jumps on me- no, I am not saying he can't say it. But he looks like a small man who got mad about criticism for a weekend run of a musical, and I think it's uncalled for.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
#69Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 5:15pm
And I disagree 100% I'm glad he wrote the letter. It's a perfect response to a truly amateurish pile of PC crap masquerading as a review. Hopefully she won't be a regular reviewer.
#70Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 5:25pm
South Fl Marc said: "And I disagree 100% I'm glad he wrote the letter. It's a perfect response to a truly amateurish pile of PC crap masquerading as a review. Hopefully she won't be a regular reviewer."
She is a regular reviewer for the Times.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#71Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 5:27pm
Sorry, I guess I should have said ... I hope she is no longer a regular reviewer for the Times. (Apologies, I don't know why this was posted 3 times, I only posted it once.)
Updated On: 2/13/17 at 05:27 PM#74Big River @ Encores
Posted: 2/13/17 at 5:31pm
I don't think anything about her review necessitates firing her. How is that any different than writing the "PC crap" in the first place?
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 2/13/17 at 05:31 PM
