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.

Comments

[Ari Roth]

pretty much, Isaac -- I do respect your parents, and I think you swear too much on the internet. I tried to post a comment on The Playgoer two days ago from Cincinnati in reference to your repeated "Roth fucked up" but it didn't take my password. I'll stand by the rhetorical question I asked in your comment to which I answered; if the Wiesels had asked for a one year moratorium, we would have swapped out the first show and negotiated to produce IMAGINING MADOFF in the spring. In fact, a letter did come but everyone at Theater J and the DCJCC was comfortable with the idea of producing a revised version of the play. I trust, with good negotiating, that would have worked out. And trust, and hope, it will still work out and that, in 2010-11, the play will see the light of Day in DC.

The old post was going to note corrections, such as:
- I do not consider Elie Wiesel to be a "good friend" or a "personal friend." I haven't seen him since the 70s.
- The Wiesel Foundation has never given a penny to Theater J or the DCJCC.

I do accept the criticsim that I should have shown Deb the first letter I wrote to the Wiesel Foundation, which listed all the points we talked about on the phone before, but also went further in discussing how we hoped to send back a revised script to the Wiesel to demonstrate that Deb/we had done as promised, in removing Wiesel from the script. While I has mentioned this several times on the phone, I didn't realize the extent to which Deb and Morgan disagreed with this as a strategy. And they told me so after I sent the letter. In the end, this is where we had our singular disagreement and Deb pulled the play rather than give Wiesel the second courtesy of reviewing the revised script.
The apology to Deb on not conferring with her in writing is a private matter. I'm comfortable in telling you that, yes, I've learned some lessons as a result of losing this play. And I do hope we get it back; and I do look forward to seeing it at Stageworks Hudson this summer.

[Playgoer]

Ari--Very sorry you could not get through the Playgoer sign-in. I've posted the gist of your comments there myself. Feel free to contact me directly at "playgoer [at] gmail [dot] com" if you encounter such problems again.

Meanwhile I will continue to stay abreast of your dialogue here with Isaac.