Theresa Rebeck Sounds Bugle, Female Playwrights Charge?

Just caught wind of playwright Theresa Rebeck's screed in the Guardian (courtesy of a post by Jason Grote and a post by Matt Freeman) regarding the ongoing paucity of female dramatists being produced on Broadway.

Rebeck has a right to be angry, concerned, or furious, depending on what angle she's taking. She writes:

Boys, boys, boys! This year on Broadway it is a celebration of boys! Step aside, girls - it's time for the boys!

The New York Times tells us this week that this is the Year of the Man. This year is nothing like last year, when there was actually one new play, written by a woman(me), on Broadway. At the tail end of the season a revival of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill snuck into the lineup too. And then lots of awards went to Tracy Letts -who is a man, but whose name sounds like it could be a woman's name. So that's TWO women and one guy whose name sounds like a woman's. It was exhausting dealing with all that estrogen. Time to give the men a chance.

Could we get real? Every year is the Year of the Man, with a couple of women who manage to crawl their way into the lineup. In the 2008/2009 season, as it has been announced, the number of plays written by women on New York stages will amount to 12.6% of the total. Want to know the same figure for the 1908/1909 season? Let's see, it was ... 12.8%!

One might put this trend down to something like, hmm, discrimination. But actually what we're told is that the plays that are produced are just the plays that were worth doing, and that playwriting is in fact a Y-chromosome gene. So women should just back off, because putting plays written by women into production because maybe audiences might like a really well-written play that was well-written by a woman would be pandering to ideas of political correctness. And art doesn't do that.

Well, there's so much here I agree with and so much that I don't. I think the fact that Rebeck developed those statistics is fabulous -- and since I have the Best Plays book covering that year, I'll check myself. I actually thought her figure for the 1908-09 season was kind of high.

However, Rebeck does omit that Broadway, in the sense that we think of it today, didn't exist 100 year ago. Among other things, the real heart of the theatre district was south of Times Square. And touring was different, and the star system still existed, and play-development programs...well, what play development programs and graduate school programs were there? Women couldn't vote in 1908. I don't think omitting these things -- and sort of picking a statistics out of the air because it was a century ago and looks good on paper -- is the same thing as a honest century-by-century comparison.

More than that, there's something about Rebeck's tone that bothers me. Was it necessary to mention that Tracy Letts' name "sounds like it could be a woman's name"? What's next -- that Michael Learned works because she has a man's name or that Stacy Keach works because he has a woman's name?

No, what Rebeck really wants to do is beat up on Charles Isherwood for his "Year of the Men" piece. Are such articles reductive and faux-trend starting? Of course they are -- that's what they're meant to do. In practical terms, and in terms of the long-term cultural trends, it's never "Year of the Men" or "Year of the Women" any more than it's "Year of the Slob" or "Year of the Neatnik." Rebeck should know better than to engage the same kind of glib, not-thought-through reductionism that pisses her off in the first place.

But there's yet another point here. Why is she all about Broadway, Broadway, Broadway? Yes, I know she was the only woman to have a new play produced on Broadway last year. But, um, how many new plays were produced on Broadway overall, exactly? Notice how it's Theresa Rebeck writing this screed, also, and not Sarah Ruhl? Funny thing, that.

And I really, really have a problem with Rebeck when she writes:

One might put this trend down to something like, hmm, discrimination. But actually what we're told is that the plays that are produced are just the plays that were worth doing, and that playwriting is in fact a Y-chromosome gene. So women should just back off, because putting plays written by women into production because maybe audiences might like a really well-written play that was well-written by a woman would be pandering to ideas of political correctness. And art doesn't do that.

What art does is celebrate the lives and struggles of men.

It also apparently celebrates big nasty women who wreck their children's lives. Last season, Mama Rose once again held the stage; the mother in August: Osage County is a real monster too. So two terrifying women in plays written by men were up to their old tricks. This, we are told, is really what made last season a woman's year.

Notice how she codes what could be construed as homophobia in her statement: men writing about "big nasty women who wreck their children's lives," "two terrifying women in plays written by men," hint hint? Why doesn't she just come out and call Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein -- oh, and Tracy Letts, too -- misogynists? I guess Lillian Hellman never wrote any plays about nasty or terrifying women. Telling people what to write -- as opposed to telling them what to produce -- is wrong.

So, as I say, I think she Rebeck has a good overall point, but it really could be sharper -- and less, um, nasty and terrifying.

Finally, at the bottom of Jason's post, he posts a letter sent to Dramatists Guild members by playwright Julia Jordan. The first paragraph of that letter reads:

As some of you know, I've been working on the lack of gender parity in the production of plays in the new york theater scene. Already there has been a meeting of over 150 female playwrights in New York and the Dramatist Guild is announcing that it will no longer give grants to theaters who discriminate against female writers.

OK, that's fine. But here's my question: What constitutes discrimination? And who is presenting the critical proof, the irrefutable empirical evidence of it? And will the DG -- or any of its male or felame members -- actually put their money where their mouths are and actually come out and say in a very public way that, for example, Todd Haimes and Tim Sanford and Lynne Meadow and Carole Rothman actively, willfully and deliberately discriminate against female playwrights? I bet you they wouldn't dare.

So call me a misogynist if you like for not clicking my heels and saluting Rebeck in every way. I don't recall being told that there's a litmus test for proving that one is not a woman-hater.

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A Horror Story, Courtesy of Jason Grote

I do a terrible job of keeping up with other people's blogs, but I do read The Fortress of Jason Grote pretty regularly and its obviously exciting that Jason is having such success in his work. In this post, he talks about the V.I.P. night for his play Maria/Stuart and, um, an encounter he had with a patron who, frankly, sounds as if she escaped from a rubber room. Do click over to read the whole post, but I hope you all (and you, Jason) don't mind me teasing with this excerpt:

Last night was V.I.P. night at Woolly, where they have a nice little reception in the lobby, introduce the playwright, and you shake hands with people and stuff. I've done this before at theaters large and small, and I generally like it. Contrary to stereotype, generally board members and trustees and people like that are pretty cool; there are a lot of things they could be blowing their money on, and they're blowing it on theater. Usually, at these things, I have a tendency to let my guard down, and why wouldn't I? It's a lot of people who have financially contributed to my work saying nice things to me and generally being curious about who I am as a person. The problem with this is that, when you let your guard down, you let the mutants in.

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The Lynching of Charles Isherwood

Jason Grote, who I recently assigned to be profiled in the pages of Back Stage, has posted a piece called "Bring Me the Head of Charles Isherwood. Or Not."

And I must say that I really like Jason's take on the fracas because it aims to put the whole thing into some sort of respectable and intelligent macro-perspective. To wit:

"I'm a bit late on the Baitz essay, but (despite the fact that a half a dozen people emailed it to me), I didn't feel compelled to comment, because (with all due respect to Baitz), he seems to be missing the point. Maybe he's too nice. What really offended me about the Isherwood piece in question (that is, his plea for TV writers to return to the stage), is not that Isherwood's own fire-breathing criticism makes him something of a hypocrite (though it does); but that playwrights who are writing television scripts for the stage should be in Hollywood making money and not writing plays because TV on stage is fucking boring. Now, I love a lot of TV, and clearly not every writer who pays the bills with TV writing is a hack. But why on earth would I pay anywhere between $20-$200 and drag my ass into midtown to see something I could get at home for free? When theater starts competing with television, it's already lost...."

Jason goes to talk about why he trashes NYT's theatre criticism and culture coverage on his blogs, but I would argue that he, along with Isaac (in his open letter to the Times) and even Matt Freeman, both of whom I greatly like and respect, nevertheless aren't taking much in the way of action to force NYT to make whatever changes -- not fully and specifically articulated, in my view -- they desire.

Everybody seems to be interested in posting 100 sentences about theatre and 20 rules for writing about plays and 100 this and 100 that. How about somebody post 100 ways to improve theatre coverage in New York? How about somebody post 100 reasons why Isherwood and/or Brantley should be let go immediately? How about somebody post 100 other people that could replace them? How about somebody, somewhere, stop the whiny-bitchy-moaning and be fully specific about how to ameliorate the situation and end the immature lynching Charles Friggin' Isherwood? The more you mock him, the more you rake him over the coals, the more you call him names, the more you assail his character, the more you write open letters to the Times that you know full well they're not going to read because they lack any teeth, the more you ascribe power to the Times -- the more that you give the Times precisely what it wants. How about getting some journalists in on the gig? How about putting your money where your mouths are? Jason Grote had the strength of character to create and circulate a petition against New York Theatre Workshop, signed by 939 people, when the workshop did that horrid job of explaining why Rachel Corrie was being postponed-slash-cancelled. Why not make it clear that Times advertisers will be boycotted if this and this and this and this isn't changed immediately? Why not take some kind of really serious action against the Times if you don't like what Isherwood is doing? Do you really believe a blog will affect change? If so, show me how it's happening. I don't think so -- I don't think the Times considers these blogs all that important.

And why does everybody continue to act like Isherwood is some wild renegade who writes whatever he wants without his editors, Rick Lyman and Sam Sifton and who knows who else, knowing anything about it? Are you all suggesting they're not complicit in this mediocrity, if you believe he's vile and vicious and mediocre?

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I Heart Jason Grote

Jason Grote's post about the Obies and then his subsequent post is straightforward and self-explanatory and just about 100% correct. Personally, I'm not even sure Jason needed to publicly apologize to Gail Parenteau (full disclosure: she is a friend as well as a colleague from the world of publicity, and back in my pre-Back Stage days I did some freelance PR work for her), but heck, what's a little snuggling up to fellow spirits when the demons of the corporate fiefdom are belching fire and brimstone at the American theatre?

The bottom line is this -- and here I depart from Jason a bit: the Obies have been increasingly becoming more disconnected from its roots (some would simply say "more of a joke") for some time. I say this because the Obies recognizes the existence, the growth, the blossoming, the emergence, of Off-Off-Broadway far less than it used to, and not all of its committee members are as well connected to the location of any of the real experimentation going on as they ought to be. (You will note that I said "not all.") Let me add that this is NOT to speak ill of SoHo Rep or any other institutional (meaning more monied than most) Off-Broadway group that wins an Obie. I wouldn't do that, just as I wouldn't speak ill of any theatre company or artist that any honor-giving body might choose to salute, since honoring anything about the theatre nowadays seems to be rather a rare event.

And yes, I know, you can cite examples of this and that company as representative of the cutting-edge -- and oooh! wow! doesn't that mitigate your argument, Leonard? No, fellow soldiers, it does NOT mitigate my argument -- I would argue that the Obies have been more out of touch with the core, the soul, the lifeforce of Off-Broadway, which used to be Off-Off-Broadway before the economics of the industry got tricked up, since Ross Wetzsteon died, with the exception of a few years here and there. Yeah, that's right, I said it...yeah, knock that battery off my shoulder.

Ross, who was the Voice's theatre editor for something like 30 years, was one of the first people ever to hire me to write reviews (17 years ago) and he understood that while the Obies are, by name, Off-Broadway-centric, they are, by heart and very much by practicality, Off-Off-Broadway-centric as well. Just like the terminally silly Drama Desk Awards ("we nominate Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway, but only Broadway or Off-Broadway ever win anything, nyah nyah nyah"), the Obies have concluded -- as Jason Grote basically notes -- that its very survival is a matter of getting hyper-corporatized and hyper-sponsorized, which usually means hyper-sterilized, which usually means lowest-common-denominatorized, which usually means turning into crap. Maybe things will change now that Brian Parks is in the driver's seat at the Voice; he knows the aesthetic quite well and he knows the criticisms of the Obies as well, I'm sure.

I think what I miss most is what I found when I started going to the Obies long ago: an incipient anarchy, a vibe of the unstoppable and unleashed. Even if the ceremony was of colossal length, at least it was interesting. At least there was something to sink your teeth into and to argue about over a drink afterward.

No, I did not go to the Obies this year; more and more I can't bear to see how bland the whole thing is becoming. (I mean, Cynthia Nixon on a Teleprompter? What could be next? Ashlee Simpson forgetting how to lip-synch? Lindsay Lohan giving herself a citation?)

So, if the corporate raiders have such a seething, putrifying, boiling hatred of New York theatre (I don't know this; I'm just taking my cue from Jason and others), let them go boil their brains and kill the Obies. Frankly, that's why I chair the IT Awards instead. This is our third year and we're damn proud of what we're doing. And the Obie were never going to ask me to be on the committee anyway, and now I've probably sealed it.

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