Parabasis

Context Matters

These trailers-recut-with-different-scores things never get old...:

Via.

Just When I Thought I was Out...

HILARIOUS UPDATE: This post initially posted with a title that referenced Sarah Palin because of some overzealous autofill funcitonality on either Safari or Typepad.

This is just weird.  When Ari Roth wrote his comment on Parabasis, he said:

There is a legitimate question: What if the Wiesel's had read the new draft--scrubbed clean of any reference to him--and they still would object? Or perhaps they'd ask for a delay in producing? What would we have done then, believing in our bones that there was no longer an issue of "libel-in-fiction" or an invasion of privacy through the writing of graphically fictionalized fantasy attributed to a character named Elie Wiesel; if we were now convinced that there was absolutely no legal ground for him to stand on in this new draft (whereas in the original draft containing his name the case law is perhaps a bit murkier--where at least you could be assured that, if taken to court, you might stay there for a while), we would have, I suspect, delayed the production by a few months, swapping in a spring show into the fall slot, and worked to sort this thing out, outside of court.

But according to Deb Margolin's most recent comment on Parabasis:

the day after [Imagining Madoff was pulled], in fact, I was cc'd on a letter sent to Ari Roth from the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, requesting a 1-year moratorium on even a rewritten script, without Professor Wiesel's character in it at all, followed by an opportunity for the Foundation to consider the rewritten script and express its opinion on whether or not they were comfortable with the play's being presented after that year.

I guess it must be assumed that that letter was on Roth's mind when he wrote the comment, several days after receiving the letter. Still, I guess it is worth asking, or at any rate, Ari Roth thinks it's worth asking, what Ari Roth would've done if their differences with the foundation couldn't be worked out but the theater no longer faced any real legal liability? Roth's scenario above ends with the assumption that the Wiesel foundation and Theater J could've sorted things out in a few months. But I see no reason to assume that, given what transpired. So would they have shit canned the script? We'll never know, but Roth thinks it's worth asking! Then again, what do I know? I'm just a crank on the internet whose parents Roth happens to respect.

Sunday Morning Music

StageGrade's First Tony Poll

let me break my radio silence for one moment to direct you to the StageGrade Tony Poll! We asked the NY critics what they think should win and will win each of the major Tony awards.  Check out the results. I was surprised, to say the least, at all the love for Memphis and Come Fly Away out there, and the lack of love for Fela!

Don't Hold Back

Before Isaac left for his honeymoon he enjoined us, his co-bloggers, to take up the slack. 99 and Anne have done an admirable job. I have shirked. This was in part because it’s been pretty contentious around here lately and I’m disinclined to engage in any sort of online disagreement more serious than, say, a list of the five best Simpsons episodes (“Marge Vs. the Monorail,” “The Day the Violence Died,” “Itchy and Scratchy Land,” “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield,” and “22 Short Films about Springfield,” and I’ll kill anyone who says different). It was also in part because I’m sleepy. But I’ve got to write something. And I figure if that means an annotated list of comics I’ve been reading lately, then that’ll have to do. So here it is:

After the jump come vaginas, penises, the Black Death, and talking cigarette lighters.

Finale Follies: Fringe

This is the third in my series about season finales. You can find the others here and here. Some serious SPOILERS BELOW! So stop reading if you don't want to know what happens here.

Okay, I'm just going to level with you guys: Fringe is The X-Files redux. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, explain it away or whatever. If you liked The X-Files, you'll probably like Fringe. If, way back in 1993-94, you and your friends gathered on crappy furniture in a dorm room every Friday night, ignoring invites to parties, to watch The X-Files and then spend the rest of the evening discussing it, you're going to love Fringe. I love Fringe.

words of love for womanist alien robots from the future everywhere...

Check out this gorgeous tribute to Janelle Monae, the official patron saint of Parabsis. When I listen to Archandroid, I can feel my heart growing in my chest--just like the Grinch at the end of the movie!

Better Than the Book

Over at Ta-Nahisi's place, he gives some space to a commenter to cite many examples of films that are superior to the books they are adapted from.  It's an interesting list, one I don't completely agree with , but I'll save discussion of that list itself after the jump.

For now: What are movies you think are better than the books (or plays!) they're adapted from?

(and to the list that the commenter cooks up, I would personally add Stand By Me and Odd Man Out)

Peter Beinart Responds To His Critics

And you can read all about it here, where he tried to tackle the criticism that he isn't critical enough of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and "Muslim extremists in general". Read all about it here.

All I Ever Wanted...

Devil In A Blue Dress

Last night in post-wedding recovery, Anne and I streamed Devil in a Blue Dress, the film adaptation of the Walter Mosely mystery, starring Denzel Washington and a (then unknown) Don Cheadle as Mouse. The film also features Lisa Nicole Carson-- who would go on to play major roles on Ally McBeal and ER-- as Coretta James. We've been going through a bit of a Mosely phase ever since we listened to two of his books on our way across the country.  

I saw Devil in the theater when it came out, and enjoyed it, but didn't remember it. But now that it's on Netflix Instant, I have to say, it's a wonderfully nuanced, fully realized noir.  There's a shit ton of backstory to most of the characters and relationships, and it is very rare indeed that a film makes those histories feel real and lived in. 

One of Mosely's great achievements in the Easy Rawlins series has been to create a fully realized world, a world where every character feels real, and the milieu is nuanced and detailed, right down to the homeless drifter who keeps trying to cut down Easy Rawlins' trees. It's easy when adapting a novel to the screen to sacrifice all of that texture, to see it as filler when the story is the meat.  Luckily, Devil avoids this, in much the same way that L.A. Confidential (set only a few years later in the same city) trusts the viewer to process a lot of information handled contextually and without too much exposition.

And-- again surprisingly-- the film manages to keep the book's politics completely intact, without hitting the viewer over the head with them.  Denzel Washington is also perfectly cast.  It's surprising to me that they never adapted any more of these books into films, although if I remember correctly, Devil was a critically respected semi-flop with most of the attention going to Cheadle.

Ah well. If you have a netflix membership, stream it! It's ninety minutes well spent.

Finale Follies: ...And Found

As I mentioned here, I'll be writing a series about season finales for the 2009-2010 season. I'll be talking about the finales themselves, the shows, and what they say about storytelling. This is the second. The first is here. Needless to say, SPOILERS ABOUND BELOW!!! Do NOT read if you haven't watched the finale, or the series, and intend to, unspoiled. Because you won't.

I used to love sick days when I was a kid. Not that I loved being sick; let's be honest, half the time, I wasn't really sick anyway. I just wanted to skip school. But not to hang out with my friends or anything like that. All of my friends were good kids and they were in school almost every day. I never really admitted it, but I skipped school to watch Days of Our Lives. I did. I would watch on sick days and during vacations and summer break. I would catch up on what happened with Bo and Hope, Patch and Kayla, the whole menagerie of square-jawed men and women with extravagant hair. What can I say? I lived in New Jersey and it just fit.

Soap operas are a weird bastard child of television. No one treats them with any respect, but, while they're in a pretty sharp decline right now, they have had incredible staying power. There's something about these long, convoluted stories that engage people on a daily basis. They're one of the oldest forms of modern entertainment and, of course, have a lineage that stretches back through Dickens' serialized novels all the way back to Homer, really. We love getting lost in the lives and loves of others.

Finale Follies: ...And Found

As I mentioned here, I'll be writing a series about season finales for the 2009-2010 season. I'll be talking about the finales themselves, the shows, and what they say about storytelling. This is the second. The first is here. Needless to say, SPOILERS ABOUND BELOW!!! Do NOT read if you haven't watched the finale, or the series, and intend to, unspoiled. Because you won't.

I used to love sick days when I was a kid. Not that I loved being sick; let's be honest, half the time, I wasn't really sick anyway. I just wanted to skip school. But not to hang out with my friends or anything like that. All of my friends were good kids and they were in school almost every day. I never really admitted it, but I skipped school to watch Days of Our Lives. I did. I would watch on sick days and during vacations and summer break. I would catch up on what happened with Bo and Hope, Patch and Kayla, the whole menagerie of square-jawed men and women with extravagant hair. What can I say? I lived in New Jersey and it just fit.

Soap operas are a weird bastard child of television. No one treats them with any respect, but, while they're in a pretty sharp decline right now, they have had incredible staying power. There's something about these long, convoluted stories that engage people on a daily basis. They're one of the oldest forms of modern entertainment and, of course, have a lineage that stretches back through Dickens' serialized novels all the way back to Homer, really. We love getting lost in the lives and loves of others.

Sunday Morning Music

Love Love Love

Congrats to Isaac and Anne on a beautiful wedding yesterday. I was honored to be there for and with you guys.

Let Me Add This...

...as the guy who got the whole Theatre J/Imagining Madoff ball rolling here at Parabasis. I heartily second Isaac in welcoming Ari Roth, Deb Margolin and Morgan Jenness to both this blog and this conversation. Way too often, these things get talked about on a blog and the people involved are never heard from. It's certainly given me and all of us a perspective on this that we didn't get from the original WaPo article or that we would have on our own.

That said, as usual both on the internet and in life, this conversation has spread far afield and touched on a lot of things. Hearing from most of the major players has added background information and clarified points of fact, but there are still some points that are open to discussion in my mind. Often, when these kind of issues come up, there's a flurry of talk and back-and-forth, but then some factual errors or assumptions are corrected and it's treated as though the matter is now settled. I don't think this necessarily is, though it's probably time to move on. Below the jump, I want to highlight the points that I think are still up for discussion and say a couple of other things.

One Final "Imagining Madoff" Post (From Me)

(NOTE: Updated for Clarity)

There's been a lot of comment action about the Imagining Madoff fracas here at Parabasis, and as a result, three of the four major players-- playwright Deb Margolin, agent Morgan Jeaness and Theater J Artistic Director Ari Roth-- have all weighed in here at Parabasis.  I welcome all three's engagement with this site and the issues raised here.  Ari Roth's comment in particular is... I suppose "forceful" would be the accurate word... and makes a number of claims about my coverage of this issue and Theater J's performance of Seven Jewish Children. 

I would like to discuss this in depth but... well... I'm getting married today, and managing and writing these posts has been done in the context of around the clock wedding and honeymoon planning. I am going to be away from my computer and my life here in Brooklyn for awhile after this weekend, and as I have to get dressed and go to the wedding venue in a bit, I don't really have time to respond here. 

So this is what I would like to do: Below the jump on this post, you will find Margolin, Jeaness and Roth's statements, as well as a link to the original article that launched this whole conversation.  And let me just say that there very well may be factual inaccuracies in the posts I wrote about this subject and Seven Jewish Children. Posts on both subjects were based on available information at the time. In the case of Seven Jewish Children, it was the press coverage of the event, along with Ari Roth's interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg on the subject. In Imagining Madoff's case, it was through trying to figure out what was going on as each new statement or press story was released. 

Roth's statement claims that there are lots of factual innacuracies in Parabasis posts about both Imagining Madoff and Seven Jewish Children. There's one thing I definitely got wrong... my original post on Seven Jewish Children at Theater J mentioned a speaker whose escape to Palestine saved him from the holocaust. In my most recent post on the subject, this got conflated to "holocaust survivor" which was totally inaccurate and a regrettable result of the pace I've been going at this week.  I apologize for the error. Much of the rest of Mr. Roth's statement appears to focus on difference between us on the value of providing "context" to a work of art and other topics more related to differences of opinion.  I wish I had time right now to sort out the particulars of whether or not I did this case, but I don't.  I have a personal life to maintain and enjoy and celebrate and that's what i'm going to go do today. None of this is meant as a dodge for taking responsibility, simply as an admission that I'm a human being and today for me is not about Theater J.

I will also say that Parabasis has always been and will continue to be a journal of opinion, and that the question mark in the post where I asked if this was DC's Rachel Corrie was not rhetorical.  It was a real question. I had-- and continue to have-- an opinion as to its answer, but that doesn't make it less of a question.

These few blog posts have generated a lot of heat.  Luckily, through the participation of people involved in the actual story, they've managed to generate some light as well.  I'm grateful for that. 

On a final note, before I go to the jump and post all the statements, is that there's a tacit accusation of self-hatred made against me in the comment thread as well. So let me make this clear: I do, indeed, have pretty deep conflicts about both nationalism and institutions in general. But I focus more heavily on problems and differences I have with Jewish Institutions not because they are Jewish, but because I am, and, thanks to the somewhat-falling-out between the administrations of Netanyahu and Obama, there's been a lot more to discuss on those fronts than in general.  Nationalism and the institutionalization of culture are a double edged sword, on the one hand, there's a real sense of belonging and real power generated and new moves that are opened up and created. On the other, there's a creation of a party line and problematic treatment of those who don't adhere to it.  Given that part of our intellectual, philosophical and moral tradition is a non-dogmatic approach to religion and the Midrash-- in which multiple interpretations of Torah passages are considered equally valid-- and that i myself come from a line of secular, non-zionist, non-northeastern Jews, this other edge of the sword  is particularly visible and particularly galling to me. That being said, the idea that I wrote about this issue simply because I have some kind of grudge against Jewish institutions is offensive and innaccurate. I was not the first person on this site to write about it, the production cancellation I connected it to (Rachel Corrie)was not done by a Jewish institution, and I would've written about a production being cancelled amidst threats of lawsuits regardless of who the players were. 

That's about all I have time to write about today on this issue. I gotta, to paraphrase a famous song Get Me To The Secular Commitment Ceremony Venue On Time. Thanks again to all participants in this discussion and Parabasis' readership.  I became an adult writing this blog, and even when things get hot and heavy around here, am grateful for its existence.  

Please feel free to keep the discussion going in the comments to this post. People, after all, are going to have their own interpretations of what happened, even after reading all the statements involved, and as this conversation was not started by me but was actually started by 99Seats, I'm sure he might want to weigh in as well. And as a wedding present to me: be good to each other and avoid cheap shots. 

And a Happy Monae To You

You're welcome:

Freedom's Just Another Word...

I may not be the Rapid Response Team, but I do have some thoughts on Rand Paul and the applications of philosophy. (Wow. That sounds pretty freaking dry. Oh, well.) I was cooking on a big post about the limits of libertarianism and how Paul's appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show shows, conclusively, that libertarianism is a fine idea and all, but not an actual, functioning governing philosophy. But you know what? Ta-Nehisi Coates, Adam Serwer, Matt Yglesias, Josh Marshall and Steve Benen all got there before me and said it all way better than I could. So you should go read them.

There's one point, though, that I think applies to theatre and our semi-constant diversity battles.

This Rand Paul Thing...

Makes me miss doing the Rapid Response Team.