After Dark, May 15, 2012

Questions. Answers?
Discuss
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

- Louis CK does a bit on the words "nigger", "faggot" and "cunt"
- Bill Burr does one in which he wonders about sports commentators' careers which have gone up in flames because the commentators have mentioned race as a reason for sports talent
- David Cross suggests God is a pedophile in one piece and that Jesus is a faggot in another
- David Sedaris reads from a story in which he visits the Anne Frank hideaway in Amsterdam and admires its real estate potential
- Dieudonné denies the Holocaust, praises Hitler and is relentlessly anti-semitic in his comedy

This week, the Corona Theatre in Montreal cancelled a Dieudonné gig citing contractual difficulties. The French comic is picketed at nearly every venue in which he appears. So what is the difference between them and Dieudonné?

Discuss.

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Now Magazine has a policy of not publishing anyonymous letters, but Glenn Sumi, one of their critics, did this week - an email that was aimed at the cronies' network that the email writer felt was represented by the Fringe and various other festivals. It was a smear aimed everywhere and was presented in the cloak of anonymity because the writer - who claimed to be a theatre person - feared reprisal. (CharPo does allow anonymous comment on this site but reserves the right to remove certain postings which do not follow our guidelines) Beyond the fact that Now's rules seem to be fairly fluid... Can we change theatre and the infrastructures of the arts if no one goes on the record?

Discuss.

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An artistic director wonders in an email why CharPo did not cover his latest show. Fact is, we have relentlessly covered all aspects of his company - openings, launches, appointments - since we began. He has never received a negative review from one of our critics. We asked people involved with the company - on several occasions - to write us a first-person piece; we'd be delighted to publish it! Those emails were simply not answered. Moreover, when the AD and his publicists would hit Twitter and Facebook, they would link to every other media jot and tittle except ours. We were not looking for a quid pro quo - we just figured we were off their radar and should move on (perhaps, we thought, they didn't "get" CharPo). So I decided to send a reviewer to his latest if we had one free, but we would no longer shuffle a critic from another show to one of his. Which is what happened this time and which miffed him. Were we wrong?

Discuss.

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Two of our critics (young), saw two chestnuts I would rather have been shot than see myself. They loved them. Meanwhile, two other critics (young) went to see two other plays by well-respected playwrights who - as far as I am concerned - can do no wrong. They hated the plays. So are the young seeing meaning in what I think of as crap and not understanding the "important" plays? Or is this the essence of criticism - discussion, provocation, dissent, evolution of both art and audience?

Discuss. 

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TNM finally opened its long-awaited production of Des femmes, based on a trilogy of Greek plays and lasting six and a half hours...it is going over like a lead balloon. However, most critics are veering away from re-stirring the pot which originally made this piece the much-anticipated production it is: that a convicted spousal-murderer was to perform in it (but was finally refused admittance to the country to do so). The murderer's music, however, hangs over the show. Would the work have been better with the added "texture" the murderer would have provided? Should the pot be re-stirred? What are the essential questions here?

Discuss.