John McWhorter’s NY Times Opinion Piece on City Center’s Encores

It's an excellent piece.

Holy crap, that’s a brilliant article.

I was expecting all this to be a lead-up to a convo about MUSIC MAN!

He makes many great points. But I do think some shows deserve to have another set of eyes when they're put in front of contemporary audiences –– whether it's at Encores or elsewhere. If there's something distracting or gratuitous, by all means take it out. Jack Viertel said the first step of trimming/adapting a book for Encores! is to take out "the wife-beating jokes."

Too much course-correcting leads to sanitizing work and creating boring characters...a character being morally "right" or "wrong" isn't a reflection on the author/producer, and too many people in the Twitterverse/TikTokverse seem to be mistaking those things. By making Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson isn't saying it's right for a 25 year old woman to kiss a 16 year old boy after showing us 2+ hours of detailed character work & journey.

Additionally, with the recent "controversial" musicals Jagged Little Pill and Tootsie, virtually NONE of that internet chatter permeated beyond the walls of Twitter and chatrooms. The shows failed because audiences weren't interested in seeing them at full price and they weren't that great overall –– not because of the supposed offensive aspects. People seem to be taking the wrong things away from those flops.

I think some people view identifying and removing problems to be a demonstration of intelligence. When in actuality, identifying and figuring out how to make it work might yield more interesting results. Also asking who is offended, why will it offend them, and what percentage of our audience is it?

Updated On: 2/16/22 at 11:52 PM

I've always enjoyed John McWhorter's opinion (he's been a guest multiple times on the Pivot podcast, which I listen to religiously), and I agree with a lot of what he says here. I suppose part of it comes back to the debate on whether revivals should be a classical remounting or a way to take a different look at an old show, but Encores seems unwilling to pick a side (and the changes to recent Carousel/Music Man revivals don't seem to have gone over all that well either). If they had really gone in on deciding to reimagine the show, I don't necessarily think that would be a bad thing per se, but with the way that Encores productions are structured, I doubt they have the necessary time to really break down a show piece by piece and decide how to reconstruct it (a la Daniel Fish's Oklahoma).

But I think this could've been an opportunity to really bring dramaturgy to the forefront, maybe have a pre-show conversation about this piece's place in history and the kinds of sensibilities people had then (and honestly, fat-shaming is still very common now, so not really sure what they were trying to sanitize here). And while I agree that certain things may take audiences out of the show, I feel like most of the Encores audiences aren't necessarily there to see a show that would be held to the same standard as today's shows in terms of political correctness, etc.

Of course one doesn't have to belong to an identity group to have an objection to how it may be represented on stage. I'm not sure percentages should be the driving metric.

I'm not transgender, but I'd take exception to hurtful or stereotypical portrayals of (or comments about) transgendered individuals in a production unless it was an integral element of the plot.

This reminds me of a Content Advisory sticker that is on a new Disney Blu-Ray re-release:

“Stories Matter: This program includes negative depictions or mistreatment of people or cultures. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact and spark conversations to create a more inclusive future.”

I think this is the most appropriate way to address situations like this, and don’t see why this sort of advisory can’t be included in say, a Playbill slip.

I think the article makes strong points, if the two examples cited are weak. TAP DANCE KID perhaps, as it did the strange thing of taking away a part by a fuller bodied actor, but I guess one where the character's appearance was consistently denigrated (though ultimately, this is corrected, which is more than often happens in life).

But THE LIFE sounds like the example of a good rewrite, not to make it more woke, but enhance the drama. They're trying to get out, as they are in the original, but the forces keeping them down are both other character and a system.

So, at times the article seemed a bit of a straw man.

“But THE LIFE sounds like the example of a good rewrite, not to make it more woke, but enhance the drama.”



But that’s besides the point. I could do a rewrite to Casablanca to enhance the drama, but should I? The point of Encores is to revisit these shows not to rewrite them.

This essay is very spot on. Theaters today are flat-out terrified of offending anyone and it's getting ridiculous.

As for THE LIFE, I was under the impression that the book was a preposterous mess (with a great score) way back when, so if they want to go and make it work, so be it. Unfortunately, it's been handed to Billy Porter who throws around smug, self-admiring concepts like "radical empathy" and then goes on to describe a Nordic model/savior attitude towards sex workers.

Islander_fan said: "I have never been a fan of censorship in the arts. I think that when an older work is revived either by City Center or elsewhere, and someone is offended, that issue should be on the audience member in attendance rather than it being on the part o the theatre to alter a line as to not offend anyone. Hell, put a note in the playbill if you want. Things change over time, and we know that there are works that are still important to see and have valid important things to say while also being a product of its time. That’s why I rolled my eyes when there was the issue with Gone With the Wind a little while back.

This isn’t a theatre related example about things changing but still. In the 60s in a lot of Jewish populated neighborhoods, would refer to Chinese food as Chinks. As in, we’re going out for chinks for dinner tonight. We now know that that’s totally wrong to say. Yet, we do have the ability to realize as well that that was a product of its time. Doesn’t make it right. But, It was said, and did happen so the idea of, say, canceling it out is beyond silly to me."

Can you please censor this to not actually include the slur in its full form?

Encores used to be about presenting forgotten musicals fairly closely to how they were, and showing (and even highlighting) what doesn’t work through a modern lens. I feel like it was never a fixer-upper mission statement. I’m a believer that a strong directorial vision can say more than a rewrite (look at the recent My Fair Lady ending, the Oklahoma! revival), unless something is obviously offensive and should be revised for the preservation of the piece as a whole. For example, I welcomed their proposed revision of Thoroughly Modern Millie because how were we so ignorant to allow yellowface and anti-Asian sentiments onstage in 2002?

Islander_fan said: "I have never been a fan of censorship in the arts. I think that when an older work is revived either by City Center or elsewhere, and someone is offended, that issue should be on the audience member in attendance rather than it being on the part o the theatre to alter a line as to not offend anyone. Hell, put a note in the playbill if you want. Things change over time, and we know that there are works that are still important to see and have valid important things to say while also being a product of its time. That’s why I rolled my eyes when there was the issue with Gone With the Wind a little while back.

This isn’t a theatre related example about things changing but still. In the 60s in a lot of Jewish populated neighborhoods, would refer to Chinese food as c****s. As in, we’re going out for c****s for dinner tonight. We now know that that’s totally wrong to say. Yet, we do have the ability to realize as well that that was a product of its time. Doesn’t make it right. But, It was said, and did happen so the idea of, say, canceling it out is beyond silly to me."

To use your example, I would argue if a show was a period piece about the relationship between Chinese and Jewish people in the neighborhood, then keeping the slur in makes sense. But if the show is really about a Jewish boy’s coming of age story and they just get Chinese food for dinner one night there’s no point to leave in a word that would totally take a modern audience out of it.

Updated On: 2/16/22 at 12:24 PM

bwayobsessed said: "To use your example, I would argue if a show was a period piece about the relationship between Chinese and Jewish people in the neighborhood, then keeping the slut in makes sense.”



This sounds like a fascinating show.