We’re passing out an good old DUCHY to Hilton Als over at The New Yorker. His normally sharp and funny tongue seems to grind down to a blunt nub in his review of The Public Theater’s production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” in The Park. While his hardon for Martha Plimpton is hilarious (and not unwarranted), the review is overrun by back history, synopsis and a collage of “like from” references that I’m sure even the most ardent New Yorker-phile would have a hard time deciphering.
But it’s his clumsy handling of war issues when reviewing Charles Mee’s Iphigenia 2.0 at Signature Theatre that really gives him the good old douche:
“Like [Elizabeth LeCompte and the Wooster Group, and of the German choreographer Pina Bausch, Charles Mee] adapts historical texts to reflect the world as it is now: a fragmented place, torn apart by war [emphases mine], by the disintegration of the family, and by politicians who offer a canned performance of authority while disavowing all responsibility.”
Just what part of Hilton Als’ world has been torn apart by war, I would like to know. Well, I take that back. Maybe he’s got friends or fam on the front lines. But for most of us, the war is mainly a psychological stress at most. Our imagination of the world as a war-torn place is nothing compared to people who actually live in war-torn regions, which is, I imagine, the most important part about war that addresses the plight of those who actually endure its grizzly reality. Als I’m sayin’ is that we should be clear and careful about how we phrase things like this. A little rhetorical clarity about war would serve us all well.
