Farce: A comic dramatic work using Buffoonery and Horseplay and typically including Crude Characterization and Ludicrously Improbable situations. [Random House Webster's College Dictionary].
Wouldn't you know it, I get to direct an unpretentious farce with seasoned actors and it gets reviewed by someone with an agenda. I take seriously every issue you mention, but I can't take you seriously. You did enough of that for all of us.
Sorry, we not only did not entertain you, we insulted you and your sensibilities. That was certainly not our intention. Susan Webb
Paul, I have to agree with the posted comments sent to you. The play is a farce, silly to the extreme. I can't believe you read so much into the text. If anything, blondes should be offended by the play more than anyone. Lighten up and laugh more. Melissa Childs
It's somewhat of a stretch to use a theatrical review as a sounding board for personal opinions regarding social issues...especially considering they had nothing to do with the show's actual contents.
"If you want to do a "silly play," that's great. I love plenty of silly plays. Sometimes we really can use cheap laughs. But if you're going to do a play that contains a lot of hateful ideas..."
Paul, I was surprised by your take on the play...I am usually very sensitive to cheap shots at others expense so I must have missed the ones you point out because I was caught up in the silliness of the actual situation being played out. The ideas of homophobia, aids, or the value of women never entered my mind...although the cheating on your best friend always "tweaks" my nerves.
The premise of cheating the IRS and then having to cover up what you have done is THE STORY and, although I agree that the acting was a little forced at times, the play works for what it is...a silly comedy.
Perhaps you need to return to the theatre tonight and loosen up a bit.
Paul, I think you meant to say "Kate seducing Mr. Spinner" And to make sure you knew that *no one* on stage thinks a gay marriage is occuring or has occured (with the possible exception of Connie, but she's not the sharpest bowling ball in the bag) Both Mr. Spinner and Mrs. Trachtman think Leslie is a woman, not a cross-dresser. But you probably knew that, and I'm just misreading you.
As for the moral ambiguities and implications of the play, well fair's fair. You certainly have a right to 'call out' a play on it.
The earliest known AIDS-related deaths occurred in the late 50s. The CDC declared an epidemic of it, and named it GRID, sometime in 1981-2. In August 1982 they changed the name to AIDS. Though it did not have a name before that time, people could see, did see, the effects the disorder was having on its victims. It wasn't invisible before the CDC's declaration of an epidemic. On the other hand, nobody had any reliable facts. All they knew was that symptoms were appearing in patients that did not have an apparant cause, but did have an identifiable pattern. Many of these patients were gay, leading to the development of a common belief that the disorder could only be contracted if one were homosexual. Even the CDC misidentified the cause at first; the GR in GRID stands for "gay-related." Thus, there is a definite period before the CDC's announcement but after the virus's spread in which a perception of "gay plague" could have developed. That this play, written in 1979 and published in 1980, could have contained a joke about the virus is not inconceivable.
But as I've already acknowledged, perhaps I've just misinterpreted the joke. Perhaps Jon was just being silly when he told Connie that Leslie's sudden femininity was going to kill him. That doesn't exculpate the rest of the play (e.g. Leslie seducing Mr. Spinner; the gay marriage charade).
But let's go even further. Let's say all the homophobia which I saw in the play wasn't there, that I was reading too much into it. What about all the anti-woman rhetoric in the play? In the world of Love, Sex and the IRS, a woman isn't worthwhile unless she's beautiful. Mrs. Spinner suffers much mockery, not because she's a bad person, but because she doesn't appeal sexually to Mr. Spinner. The downstairs neighbor's obesity is mocked because it diminishes her sexual appeal. According to the play, a woman who doesn't intend to marry is loose or dishonorable, and after one's husband has died one must honor his memory even to the point of deriding and disowning her own son. The play ends "happily" not only because the tax difficulties have been resolved but because the four lovers are married for us on stage.
Women in this play have no value if they cannot be married and bedded.
If you want to do a "silly play," that's great. I love plenty of silly plays. Sometimes we really can use cheap laughs. But if you're going to do a play that contains a lot of hateful ideas, and if you're going to laugh at someone else's expense, expect to be called out for it.
The play was written in 1979. No one even knew what AIDS was. Was it a silly line? Sure. Most of the lines are silly. It's a bedroom farce, a la Three's Company. Nothing but cheap laughs, and you know what? In this day and age, sometimes that's exactly what we need. Pure, unadulterated silliness.
If the line was not meant as an intentional HIV joke, then I apologize for characterizing it as such, but I was not the only person to interpret the line in this way. Regardless, even if we were to excise that exchange from the script entirely, we would not solve the central problem of the text's immaturity and spitefulness.
Oh, Paul. I love you and I LOVE your insightful reviews. But, c'mon. That was NOT an AIDS joke fer Chrissake. Please check with people before you write something so inflammatory as 'Theatre Tulsa does shows with AIDS jokes"
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COMMENTS
Re: A Fatal Mistake
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Re: A Fatal Mistake
Wouldn't you know it, I get to direct an unpretentious farce with seasoned actors and it gets reviewed by someone with an agenda.
I take seriously every issue you mention, but I can't take you seriously. You did enough of that for all of us.
Sorry, we not only did not entertain you, we insulted you and your sensibilities. That was certainly not our intention.
Susan Webb
Re: A Fatal Mistake
I have to agree with the posted comments sent to you. The play is a farce, silly to the extreme. I can't believe you read so much into the text. If anything, blondes should be offended by the play more than anyone. Lighten up and laugh more.
Melissa Childs
Re: A Fatal Mistake
Conclusions- jump- *SPLAT*
It's somewhat of a stretch to use a theatrical review as a sounding board for personal opinions regarding social issues...especially considering they had nothing to do with the show's actual contents.
Re: A Fatal Mistake
Paul,
I was surprised by your take on the play...I am usually very sensitive to cheap shots at others expense so I must have missed the ones you point out because I was caught up in the silliness of the actual situation being played out. The ideas of homophobia, aids, or the value of women never entered my mind...although the cheating on your best friend always "tweaks" my nerves.
The premise of cheating the IRS and then having to cover up what you have done is THE STORY and, although I agree that the acting was a little forced at times, the play works for what it is...a silly comedy.
Perhaps you need to return to the theatre tonight and loosen up a bit.
Re: A Fatal Mistake
As for the moral ambiguities and implications of the play, well fair's fair. You certainly have a right to 'call out' a play on it.
Re: A Fatal Mistake
But as I've already acknowledged, perhaps I've just misinterpreted the joke. Perhaps Jon was just being silly when he told Connie that Leslie's sudden femininity was going to kill him. That doesn't exculpate the rest of the play (e.g. Leslie seducing Mr. Spinner; the gay marriage charade).
But let's go even further. Let's say all the homophobia which I saw in the play wasn't there, that I was reading too much into it. What about all the anti-woman rhetoric in the play? In the world of Love, Sex and the IRS, a woman isn't worthwhile unless she's beautiful. Mrs. Spinner suffers much mockery, not because she's a bad person, but because she doesn't appeal sexually to Mr. Spinner. The downstairs neighbor's obesity is mocked because it diminishes her sexual appeal. According to the play, a woman who doesn't intend to marry is loose or dishonorable, and after one's husband has died one must honor his memory even to the point of deriding and disowning her own son. The play ends "happily" not only because the tax difficulties have been resolved but because the four lovers are married for us on stage.
Women in this play have no value if they cannot be married and bedded.
If you want to do a "silly play," that's great. I love plenty of silly plays. Sometimes we really can use cheap laughs. But if you're going to do a play that contains a lot of hateful ideas, and if you're going to laugh at someone else's expense, expect to be called out for it.
Re: A Fatal Mistake
Re: A Fatal Mistake
Re: A Fatal Mistake
Re: A Fatal Mistake
I thank you for your kind compliment.
Re: A Fatal Mistake
Dale Sams