[Below is the second part of my acknowledgement of the death of theater reviewer John Simon (1925-2019) on Sunday, 24 November. Part 1 was posted on Rick On Theater on 28 November and it will be worth checking back if you haven’t read it already. It contains Simon’s New York magazine review of the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater’s production of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, upon which all the following is predicated, and it also starts with my general introduction to Simon’s work and the controversy it engendered.
[Furthermore, I’m presenting the
articles in this post in chronological order, so some of the following pieces
bear on the ones that went before. (Between
the individual articles in this collection, I’ve made some—occasionally extensive—comments
that may also be illuminating for the rest of the post.)
[In Part 2, you will find, among other
material, the letter I wrote to the editors of New York City periodicals and
an extended discussion of the contretemps as it stood at this early point in
its progress.]
LETTER TO THE
EDITOR
Rick
12 April 1989
[This is
the original text of a letter in response to Simon’s review I sent to the editors
of New York publications. The full letter
was published as “Criticizing the Critics” in the New York Native on 22 May 1989; a long excerpt of the letter was published
as “Was Mary Martin the Wrong Sex
for Peter Pan” in the New York Post of 22 April 1989.]
Dear Sir:
A few season ago there was a round of
literary manager-bashing in the press (still continuing, as evidenced by Jean
Passanante’s recent article in ART/NY’s [Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York]
Theatre Times). This was followed
by several playwrights impugning the work of directors on the first productions
of the dramatists’ new plays. Now we
seem in for a period of lambasting critics, starting with Peter Allen’s remarks
at the January Drama Desk luncheon about the reception of Legs Diamond,
reported in the latest issue of the Drama Desk News.
Now various members of the theater
community are exercised about John Simon’s review of the New York Shakespeare
Festival’s production of The Winter’s Tale and some subsequent comments
he made regarding his views of the production.
Unfortunately, there is a considerable difference between this case and
the all the others. Literary mangers and
directors could reasonably take offense at the remarks made by attackers and
argue the opposite point of view. In the
instance of Legs Diamond, critics can justifiably cry “sour grapes” and
point to valid, aesthetic reasons for their negative opinions of the show. In Mr. Simon’s case, we critics should not
rally round and defend his statements or cry “foul” when people like Joseph
Papp, producer of the Festival; Colleen Dewhurst, president of Actors’ Equity;
and Hazel Dukes, spokesperson for the NAACP, call for Mr. Simon’s censure. In fact, critics and journalists throughout
New York—and across the country, even—ought to join the representatives of the
theater and ethnic rights movement in shunning Mr. Simon, whose comments
represent no values that should be held by right-thinking professionals.
Certainly Mr. Simon, like all of us,
has the right to hold his own opinions of a performance, even as contrarian as
this one was. He even has the right to
publish his views. The First Amendment
to the Constitution gives him that right.
A bad review, even one that seems wrong-headed, is not an appropriate
cause for producers and actors to call for the ouster of the critic. That’s what freedom of the press and freedom
of opinion mean. We can even ignore the
attacks on the physical appearances of actors that Mr. Simon loves; hurtful as
they are, they are ultimately meaningless in terms of a production’s artistic
value. But Mr. Simon has stepped over
the line this time. Invoking negative
racial and ethnic stereotypes to make small points about coiffure or vocal
technique (I will not repeat them and thus give them wider dissemination) is
completely outrageous in this supposedly enlightened time. Cruelty of this kind, regardless of the point
Mr. Simon my have been trying to make, is inexcusable in our society.
When a Jimmy the Greek makes a racist
remark—and loses his job over it—we can explain it by saying it was just a dumb
remark. The man, never known for being
articulate or especially good with words, opened his mouth and a stupid
statement came out. We don’t have to
condone the remark or the atmosphere that generated it, but we can pity the
utterer for his ignorance. This isn’t
the case with Mr. Simon, a writer with time and control to craft his statements
and select the words he uses to make his points. His was no knee-jerk, foot-in-mouth
utterance, but a deliberately constructed reference clearly calculated to hurt
and shock. Surely even the worst
evaluation of a production can be expressed forcefully in phrases less laden
with personal denigration and culturally discredited images. Criticism, as I understand and try to
practice the art, is meant to describe and appraise a performance with some
astuteness and clarity for those who haven’t seen it; it is not intended to
destroy or damage the people involved in the work as if they have inflicted
some terrible wrong on the critic. Even
the worst play or performance is not a crime against humanity, after all.
In addition, Mr. Simon’s remarks
regarding color-blind, ethnicity-blind casting are evidence that he doesn’t
understand what the late ‘eighties are supposed to be about, either in terms of
art or in terms of society. I, for one,
had no trouble accepting Alfre Woodard—whose performance I reviewed in The
New York Native as strong and moving—as Paulina in the imaginary world of
Shakespeare’s fantasy Sicilia. Besides,
who among us really knows what ancient Sicilians or Bohemians looked like? In the end, in any case, it’s just not
important what they looked like, or what the actors playing them today look
like. This is art, not reality, and
artistic truth is supposed to go beyond mere surface appearances to the
underlying truths of the human soul.
Only the most rabid racist believes that the soul has a particular race
or culture. Or gender, for that matter.
I’m not even sure how to define “parts
for white actresses,” as Mr. Simon refers to them. Who makes the rules, besides Mr. Simon? The role of the drifter in Lilies of the
Fields was originally intended to be a white man; what a loss if Sidney
Poitier hadn’t gotten the role and turned it into a “part for a black
man.” The doctor in Outland was
written for a man, but when Frances Sternhagen was cast, it became a “part for
a woman.” And Shakespeare wrote Othello
for a white actor, since there were no black actors in Elizabethan theater;
does that make it a “part for a white man”?
What about Shylock? There were no
Jewish actors in Shakespeare’s company as far as we know. Does that mean no Jew should ever play the
role today? For that matter, all the
female parts in both Greek and Elizabethan plays were intended for male
actors. Should an accident of cultural
history prevent women from playing them today?
Well, the same kind of accident prevented black actors from appearing in
these plays; why should we be bound by it today? According to Mr. Simon’s logic, apparently,
Mary Martin should never have played Peter Pan.
After all, it’s a “part for a boy.”
Obviously, no amount of argument, no
matter how well mounted, will change the reactionary values and beliefs of John
Simon and his ilk. His kind of
iconoclasm doesn’t recognize logic or the validity of anyone else’s
opinion. What we must do, as journalists
and critics, is make it publicly clear to Mr. Simon that we do not accept his
positions and, in fact, repudiate them.
The First Amendment gives Mr. Simon the right to write and print
whatever he believes. It does not
insulate him from the repercussions. He
has the right to his opinions, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us must accept
or condone them, or allow them to go unanswered. I hereby announce my disgust with Mr. Simon’s
principles and tactics; I call on my brother journalists and critics to join
me.
[With respect to mentions above and elsewhere in the
collection to “non-traditional casting” or “inter-ethnic casting” (or any
similar phrase or reference), I point out that I have blogged in this subject
on ROT. See my post “Non-Traditional Casting,” 20
December.
[Incidentally, when I wrote this letter. I didn’t know that playwright J. M. Barrie had intended the role of Peter Pan to be played by a woman. In its 1904 London début , Nina Boucicault, daughter of playwright Dion Boucicault, played Peter and in New York, Maude Adams premièred the play as the title character in 1905. Many actresses have played the part since, both in the straight play and the musical version. I guess, counterintuitively, that makes Peter Pan a “part for a woman.”]
[Incidentally, when I wrote this letter. I didn’t know that playwright J. M. Barrie had intended the role of Peter Pan to be played by a woman. In its 1904 London début , Nina Boucicault, daughter of playwright Dion Boucicault, played Peter and in New York, Maude Adams premièred the play as the title character in 1905. Many actresses have played the part since, both in the straight play and the musical version. I guess, counterintuitively, that makes Peter Pan a “part for a woman.”]
*
* * *
“A JIMMY THE
GREEK TRAGEDY?”
“Limelight”
by Linda Winer
Newsday
[Long Island, NY]
14 April 1989
Unnecessary, you might think, to
defend John Simon, who certainly can speak eloquently and contentiously enough
for himself.
But there is ugly business between the
controversial critic and some prominent members of the theater community, who
want him fired over one of his New York magazine reviews. Considering the daily attempts to curtail
free speech in this country and the world today, the timing could not be worse.
Things blew up after Simon’s pan of
the Public Theater’s production of “The Winter’s Tale.” Simon detested virtually everything about it,
which is not the issue here. But he
described the performance of Mandy Patinkin, who is Jewish, as looking “rather
like a caricature in the notorious Nazi publication ‘Der Stuermer.’” He also said Alfre Woodard, who is black, was “visually a cross between Topsy”—(from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”)—“and the Medusa,
aurally . . . a pretty fair impersonation of Butterfly McQueen.”
Producer Joseph Papp called this an
“insult to blacks and Jews and all fair-minded people” and “reason for the
magazine to fire him.” The NAACP urged
the magazine to “take appropriate action” and Colleen Dewhurst, president of
Actors Equity, called him “a very dangerous man” and said he should be
fired. In fact, Simon’s review, as is
often the case, included both valuable ideas and stinging insults. To my mind, Simon did indeed use loaded
ethnic references, but he also raised interesting warnings about potential
dangers in the theater’s growing non-traditional casting movement.
Unfortunately, the observations are
getting lost in the heat of the get-Simon movement. Simon, conspicuously endowed with more fight
than flight reflexes, dug himself further into the muck in interviews that were
far more inflammatory than the review.
He has proclaimed, “What I was saying,
in essence, is that Patinkin is too ethnic . . . to play the king of a Greek or
Roman kingdom . . .”—though I don’t recall he said Patinkin was too ethnic to
play a French painter in “Sunday in the Park With George.”
Simon also countered Dewhurst’s attack
with this unfortunate outburst: “I’ve on occasion given her less than adoring
reviews. I’m afraid actors are not
generally known for their intellect.”
Most significantly, he said,
“Blacks do not belong in parts for white
actresses, unless they can pass for white.
That’s wrong—historically, sociologically and logically.”
This is an idea worth some kind of
discussion. For several years,
non-traditional casting has been a popular cause at theaters around the
country. I think it’s a terrific idea,
long overdue and important in bringing talent into the theater. As a black actor recently asked, poignantly,
what is he supposed to do if he makes a better Hamlet than Othello?
But not all roles are automatically
colorblind. Audiences do not immediately
accept any kind of person in any role—especially in naturalistic plays where,
for example, we expect an explanation if white parents have a black child. Credibility is strained in “Measure for
Measure” at Lincoln Center, where a black woman changes places with a white
woman in a plot to fool a man.
We are talking, then, about
conventions—about establishing new rules about suspending disbelief. In opera, we are trained to accept
conventions that go against what we see—that is, a 250-pound Mimi can be dying
of consumption, an uncharismatic Don Giovanni is a lady-killer because he sings
well.
I am not saying that anyone should be
denied the chance to play any role on the basis of color. I am suggesting, however, we acknowledge that
color-blind casting requires a conceptual leap, and that leap is broader when
performers bring contrasting styles along with them.
Most of all I support Simon’s right to
say he has a problem with it—and our right to write dissenting letters or stop
reading when he offends us.
To turn him into the theater’s Jimmy
the Greek, however, is to join the holy war against freedom of expression—to
join Pepsi against Madonna, the ayatollah against Salman Rushdie, the Michigan
housewife who convinced sponsors to abandon “Married . . . With Children”
because the sitcom does not support “family values” as she sees them.
These are dangerous times for
opinions. “Veiled Threat,” a movie
critical of the Khomeini regime, has been dropped from a major American film
festival. Some newspapers are pulling
“Doonesbury” because of its realistic strips about AIDS.
Christian Leaders for Responsible
Television plan to monitor network shows for a week later this month to decide
which advertisers to boycott. Domino
Pizza dropped “Saturday Night Live” ads in protest over repeated use of the word
“penis” on the show. The Moslems want an
apology from the Italians for Dante.
And, as Papp knows, playwright Vaclav
Havel is in Czech prison and his plays are not performed in his own
country. If we believe in free speech,
that includes speech we do not like—and tolerance for views we find intolerant.
[Jimmy the Greek, whose real name was James
George Snyder (1918-96), was a sports commentator and Las Vegas bookie. He’d worked for CBS TV since 1976 when, in
1988, he was fired for making public remarks about African Americans during an interview
that were racist. Earlier in 1989,
Pepsi-Cola pulled an ad that featured Madonna because Rev. Donald Wildmon’s
American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, protested that the
ad closely resembled a new music video Madonna released at about the same time,
but which features religious imagery.
Audiences thought the video was part of Pepsi’s ad campaign and were
disturbed, contended Wildmon.
[Also in 1989, the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini (1902-89) of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie
(b. 1947), an Indian Muslim novelist, because his 1981 novel The
Satanic Verses was deemed
blasphemous. Rushdie was forced to go
into hiding for years because of the threats to his life. Some Muslim groups want to see Dante’s Divine
Comedy removed from school curriculums or
taught with greater awareness because its 14th-century Christian-centric
philosophy is offensive and discriminatory in its treatment of Islam and
Muslims.
[Winer, however, was making a false
equivalency between these activist groups that object to ideas they oppose and
efforts to censure—and even censor—figures like John Simon and Jimmy the Greek
who make pronouncements contrary to the most fundamental tenets of our open democracy. If Simon wanted to set out a soap box in
Central Park (or the blog he had after he left New
York) and say his piece about Jews and African Americans doing classic
theater, he’d have been welcome to give it a go.
[But he wanted to use the precious
commodity of a publication, of which there are fewer and fewer—and even yet fewer
that cover theater and the arts anymore—to promote outdated and reprehensible
notions, And he did it by invoking
images from American slavery and the European Holocaust! It’s just not the same thing. As Colleen Dewhurst is quoted as saying,
Simon’s kind of words “can kill,” unlike mere criticism.
[Furthermore, he used his position of
trust and responsibility, a published critic, to do it. Diana Maychick, in her column “Der Furor On
Broadway” (posted below), also argued that Simon was writing non-fiction—facts—while
Madonna, Rushdie, and the others were dealing in fiction, and that that ought
to make a difference, too.]
* * * *
“DER
FUROR ON BROADWAY”
by
Diana Maychick
“Entertainment”
New York Post
15
April 1989
[Diana Maychick (whose earlier column
in this collection, “Papp Demands Simon’s firing,” was included in Part 1,
posted on 28 November) largely responds to Linda Winer’s Newsday
column, posted just above
Maychick’s. As ROTters will no doubt see, she also responds
some to my own remarks on Winer’s article.]
New York magazine theater critic John
Simon sparked a dramatic uproar this month, when members of the theatrical and
civil rights communities demanded his ouster.
The charge: racism and
anti-Semitism. His defense: “a long-held
aesthetic judgment” about purity in casting.
During numerous interviews with
Simon’s peers, most expressed outrage at what they termed his blatant display
of prejudice. Some also defended his
right to express his opinions. All
wondered why New York magazine continued to print Simon’s reviews.
“He can say anything he feels like,”
said Village Voice critic Michael Feingold, “but I’m perplexed as to why New
York magazine should want to publish everything he says. He’s like Don Rickles: he lives only to
insult . . . . There are so many gifted
minority actors,” Feingold said, “that it’s not only stupid to hold this view,
it’s impractical for somebody who makes a nice living watching them.”
The Post’s theater critic, Clive
Barnes, agreed, except that he compared Simon to Morton Downey Jr. “They both rely on exhibitionism to achieve
celebrity,” Barnes said. “It’s clear
that I have no sympathy for Simon’s opinions, yet I would defend to the stake
his right to say whatever nonsense he’s saying.
But he does have an editor. And
if that editor wishes to present him with a platform, then let Simon condemn
himself.”
At the magazine, Simon’s regular
editor, Florence Fletcher, said she was on vacation the week that Simon’s
review of “The Winter’s Tale” was published (April 3).
Someone else edited him,” she
conceded. “I don’t know what I would
have done. I don’t want to think about
that.” Sources close to Simon maintain
that Fletcher often has objections to some of his comments. But New York magazine Publisher Ed Kosner
said he had read the review and had raised no objections.
Simon appeared to fan the flames
shortly after the article was published when he agreed to explain his review
further to The Post. With regard to
Alfre Woodard, whom he compared to the pickaninny Topsy and squeaky voiced
Butterfly McQueen, Simon maintained that blacks should not play roles written
for white actors, “unless they can pass for white. This is old ground,” he continued. “I’ve written numerous essays about this.”
“He expresses himself in a rigorous
and sustained way,” Kosner told The Post.
“His views are often unpopular, but that in no way disqualifies him from
being a critic . . . I don’t care if
people turn their backs on him and spit on him in the street. I respectfully disagree with them.” Kosner also denied accusations lodged by
others that he refused to fire Simon because the critic’s controversial nature
sold magazines.
Simon’s fellow critics also talked
about the issues his review raised: topics ranging from non-traditional casting
and the social responsibility of a critic, to areas beyond the theatrical
realm, to questions of censorship and the First Amendment.
Simon did not respond last week to a
request from The Post for comment.
In a Friday article about the
controversy, Linda Winer, Newsday’s theater critic, warned against joining “the
holy war against freedom of expression,” citing the Ayatollah’s crusade against
Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie,
Pepsi vs. Madonna and the Michigan housewife who spearheaded a campaign against
the sit-com, “Married . . . With Children.”
[See “A Jimmy the Greek Tragedy?” posted above.]
Winer, however, failed to distinguish
between fiction (as fashioned by Rushdie or even a writer of commercials or
sit-coms) and non-fiction—what a critic writes in response to a work of
fiction.
“I think perhaps there’s a fine
distinction in responsibilities between a play, a novel or a poem on the one
hand, and newspapers and magazines on the other,” said Post critic Jerry
Tallmer. “I believe in the First Amendment
pure and simple, but a degree of self-censorship is called for in the public
prints.”
Invariably, however, the discussions
returned to the man himself: John Ivan Simon, an enigmatic, vitriolic,
brilliant 63-year-old, who says he immigrated from Yugoslavia. A man described by many in a series
paradoxes: “bigot and egghead.” “womanizer and misogynist,” “genius and jerk.”
A man who spent his entire academic
career at Harvard (B.A., 1946, M.A., 1948, Ph.D., 1959), defecting from the
ranks of pre-med (he found he couldn’t dissect a frog) and turning to
comparative literature (the pen as knife).
“He says his words hurt, but they’re
not specific weapons,” said Colleen Dewhurst, president of Actors’ Equity. “I say his words can kill.”
The latest storm Simon has engendered
follows a long list. He aroused the ire
of homosexuals in 1985 when Liz Smith reported he was heard saying: “Homosexuals
in the theater! My God, I can’t wait
until AIDS gets all of them!” The same
year, in print, he called a domestic drama, “The Octette Bridge Club,” “faggot
nonsense.”
His personal attacks are also
legion. In 1976 he devoted several
paragraphs to Barbra Streisand’s nose, closing his thought with the
observation: “It zigzags across the horizon like a bolt of fleshy
lightening. It towers like a ziggurat
made of meat.” In another review
centering on Streisand’s heritage, Simon speculated that she learned her
technique at the “Brooklyn Academy of Yentaism.”
He has compared Liza Minnelli’s face
to a beagle’s and Sandy Dennis’ smile to a calf’s head in a butcher’s
window. He once described Zoe Caldwell
as fat and unattractive in every part of the face, body and limbs, though he
admitted he “had not examined her teeth.”
“This fearful stance—the actor as
enemy—has more to do with the psychosis of a critic than with the art of
criticism,” said one of his colleagues.
But last week, Simon’s own critics determined that his cruelty had
changed its face and exposed itself as bigotry.
Actors’ Equity, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Anti-Defamation
League of B’nai B’rith all charged Simon with racism and anti-Semitism for his
review of “The Winter’s Tale.” In
addition, Actors’ Equity and producer Joe Papp also demanded that he be fired from
his position at New York magazine.
In Simon’s latest collection of
essays, “The Sheep From the Goats,” he writes: “I firmly believe and have often
put in writing, that one cannot cast a black-looking or -sounding actor as,
say, Mark Antony or Prince Hal. History
has prior claims.”
“That’s just puke,” said Shakespearean
coach Harold Guskin. “It stems in part
from Simon’s own background: the Eastern European ‘cult of the genius,’ where
scholarship precludes all claims of decency and common sense. I happen to think he’s brilliant, but his
bigoted notions often get in the way.”
According to Abiola Sinclair, theater
critic for the Amsterdam News, Simon “is both racist and elitist,” quite
consciously seeking to preserve Western standards. And if they’re not met, his neo-Nazi brain
switches to combat mode.”
Simon’s mandate for historical
accuracy in casting now seems to have extended itself to the nationalities of
white actors. In the interview with The
Post, he said that Mandy Patinkin was “too ethnic” to portray a Greek or Roman
king. That remark served as a coda to
his review of “The Winter’s Tale,” in which he compared Patinkin’s physical
attributes to “a caricature from the notorious Nazi publication Der Stuermer.” A sentence earlier, he described Patinkin’s
stance as that of an international financier,” a phrase used disparagingly and
euphemistically to connote a powerful Jew who is part of so-called worldwide
Jewish financial conspiracy.
“That’s the most ludicrous, backward
and objectionable statement Simon has made in a long career of ludicrous,
backward and objectionable statements,” said Gregory Mosher, the artistic
director of Lincoln Center.
“Such a view boggles the mind,” said
Jeffrey Sinensky, director if the Anti-Defamation League’s Civil Rights
Division, in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It appears from Mr. Simon’s comments that he
could not envision a Shakespearean production in Israel or on the African
continent.”
According to Dewhurst and Harvey
Sabinson, director of the League of American Theaters and Producers,
non-traditional casting is a No. 1 priority when race, ethnicity and sex are
not germane to a character’s or play’s development.
Barnes maintains that in classic
drama, “where there is realism but not naturalism, color has the same relevance
as height: you notice it and then lose sight of it.” Daily News theater critic, Howard Kissel, on
the other hand, believes “the issue of affirmative action in the theater is a complicated
and sensitive subject. And it hasn’t
always worked.”
Arthur Rubin, vice president of the
Nederlander Organization, disagreed.
“Society evolves, thank God. But
time has stood still for John Simon.
What century does he live in?
What country?” he asked.
“Remember when Jimmy the Greek made a prejudiced statement about black
athletes? Well, he was fired.”
Yet Barnes counters that “any
encroachment on the First Amendment is dangerous. And at least Simon’s prejudices are not
subtextual: he makes it clear that he’s antic-gay, anti-black, anti-feminist,
now anti-Semitic.”
A week ago at the Public Theater, “The
Winter’s Tale” had just finished its six week run. But Simon’s review was still in the air,
hanging heavy in corridors and rehearsal halls, his words repeated by black
actors and white, whispered by directors and stage hands, and shouted by Joe
Papp, the man in charge of the theater, an impresario who has made it his
business to present people of all colors in show.
“Here it is right in our own back
yard—anti-Semitism and racism—in an innocent little package: a review on
Shakespeare,” Papp said. “Maybe that’s
why people aren’t paying attention.
Because they think it’s only theater.
Well, it’s larger than that: it speaks to our complacency as a
nation. In any other decade, there would
be protests and boycotts and action. . .
You know, I doubt the [Ku Klux] Klan would be so blatant in its bigotry
today.”
Papp is seated in his office
surrounded by posters of some of his hits: “A Chorus Line,” “Hair,” “For
Colored Girls . . .,” three decades of theatrical memorabilia that attest to
his rainbow-coalition approach to the stage.
Downstairs in the theaters, black
actors are rehearsing “Forbidden City”; a healthy number of Czech emigres are
wrestling with an English translation of “Temptation” from their dissident
countryman Vaclav Havel; and nearby, a troupe of Yiddish-speaking actors is
refining its hit musical, “Songs of Paradise.”
“I’m trying to present theater for
everybody, and here’s this man ranting about ethnic purity in 1989 under the
guise of his aesthetic platform. How
come nobody remembers all the bad examples history has given us about ethnic
purity? How come nobody’s listening?”
Papp asks.
Last Sunday, John Cardinal O’Connor
spoke out. “In my judgment, there is absolutely
no room for comparisons of that sort, or even remotely implied criticism that
can be construed as anti-Semitic or racist . . .,” O’Connor said. “It doesn’t matter who the source may be,
however respected he is. The more
respected the individual, the more responsible he must hold himself.”
[Because so much time has passed since
these articles appeared—30 years, in fact—I feel that some references, no
longer current, require some comment or explanation:
Don
Rickles
(1926-2017) – known as “Mr. Warmth,” Rickles was a popular stand-up comic and
actor. His field was “insult comedy,”
but he wasn’t truly mean-spirited; it was a persona, a performance.
Clive
Barnes
(1927-2008) – chief theater (and dance) reviewer for the New
York Post from 1978 until 2008;
previously, he’d held the theater position at the
New
York Times. (Other review-writers named in this and the other articles in this
collection are no longer writing reviews; some are deceased, others just
retired—but they were all prominent voices in the world of New York theater,
John Simon’s peers—though he might not have acknowledged that status.)
Morton
Downey Jr.
(1932-2001) – daytime talk-show host (The Morton Downey
Jr. Show, 1987-89); pioneered “trash TV” format that emphasizes controversial and sensationalistic subjects; known for
his abrasive and combative style which occasionally ended in physical
confrontations.
Liz
Smith
(1923-2017) – long-running gossip columnist with columns in New York’s Daily
News, Newsday, and the New York Post; she also
appeared in TV newscasts, winning an Emmy in 1985.
The Octette Bridge Club – Broadway play by P. J. Barry (1931-2019);
ran for only 24 performances in March 1985.
Brooklyn
Academy of Yentaism
– obvious travesty of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Fort Greene; Yenta (or
Yente) is a Jewish woman’s name and, because of the Yiddish theater, has come
to mean a busybody or gossip. (The
name’s connection to Jewish matchmaking is due solely to the matchmaker
character in 1964’s Fiddler on the Roof, whose name is Yente.)
Zoe
Caldwell
(b. 1933) – Australian-born, internationally renowned actress considered one of
the best on the English-speaking stage; winner of four Tonys
“I
doubt the [Ku Klux] Klan would be so blatant in its bigotry today.” – Papp (1921-91) died before the
resurgence of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and Klan-like organizations;
incidents like the Charlottesville, Va., violent demonstrations and the Charleston,
S.C., church shooting would have been anathema to him in 1989.
Forbidden City
– play by African-American writer Bill
Gunn (1934-89) that ran at the Public Theater’s LuEsther Hall, under Papp’s
direction, from March to June 1989; Temptation, by Havel (1936-2011) was staged by Jiri Zizka in Martinson Hall in
March and April 1989; Songs of Paradise
by Rena Berkowicz Borow (book), Miriam
Hoffman (book), and Rosalie Gerut (music) was presented in the Susan Stein
Shiva Theater under the direction of Avi Hoffman between January and May 1989.
Vaclav
Havel
- Czech statesman, writer, and dissident who served as the last President of
Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia (into Slovakia
and the Czech Republic) in 1992; a popular writer at the Public, which produced
five of his scripts, including Temptation (the last) between 1968 and 1989; three
Public Theater productions won Obies for Havel: The Memorandum (1968), The Increased Difficulty of
Concentration (1970), and A Private
View (1984).
John
Cardinal O’Connor
(1920-2000) – Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York from 1984 to 2000.]
*
* * *
[Part
3 of my John Simon post will be published on 4 December. I hope you will return to read the following
selections of articles and other published materials from the controversy
created by Simon’s review of The winter’s Tale.]
