The Shawn & Kati Show

Okay, you've probably been able to tell that there has been a certain amount of turmoil going on here at the Hub Review.  And if you're in the theatre community, you're going to hear about all this anyway.  So I might as well tell you.

I have resigned as a member of the IRNE Awards, largely due to the scheming of the ART's Kati Mitchell (the addled old bat who has long defined the local nadir of the public relations profession) and Company One's "artistic" director, Shawn LaCount.  For many readers, I suppose an introduction is in order to both these unsavory characters.  First, batty Kati - she's been after me for years, I think because I could precisely explain why most ART productions were pretentious junk. She didn't like that, not one bit; not because she understood the productions herself (don't be ridiculous; she's crazy but not that crazy); no, it was just that my level of insight threw a serious wrench into the campaign of intimidation and threat by which the ART maintains its reputation against all artistic and moral odds. Kati not only used to send me crazy emails in all caps after a bad review, but, believe it or not, she even penned the IRNE folks an angry letter declaring that the ART's failure to win more awards every year only made the IRNEs look bad.  She's hilariously beyond the pale - easily the worst PR person I've ever encountered in my life.

Next: Kati's latest cohort in crime, Shawn LaCount, whom (yes) I called an "a**hole" in one of my tweets a few weeks ago. Shocking, I know; such language!  (And in my own Twitter feed!)  I tossed off this "personal attack" (in Kati's self-serving lingo) because Mr. LaCount was serving as her replacement for Jeff Poulos, late of StageSource, who was her previous pawn in a plot last year to get me off the IRNEs. (Yes, the poor IRNE critics have gone through all this before - Mitchell essentially wages wars of attrition.)

Now calling LaCount an a**hole may be crass, but is it inaccurate? Before you answer, consider that LaCount has spent the last few weeks relentlessly badgering and harassing various IRNE members (until finally I resigned just so he'd leave them alone). He whined and screamed and stamped his feet. He called the IRNE critics racist (of course); what's more, he actually called good old Beverly Creasey a racist, even though she was one of the founders of the non-traditional casting project, back in the days when local critics like Arthur Friedman (Bill Marx's mentor, of course) would publicly argue for all-white casting for classic plays - and many years before LaCount discovered (as so many of his generation have) the career-enhancing aspects of "fighting" something that nobody actually supports anymore.  To be fair, LaCount was also probably smarting from my labeling him a "race diva" after Company One refused me press tickets to their crude blackface extravaganza The Neighbors - which was dreadful, everyone says in private, so maybe I should be grateful I didn't have to suffer through it.  And to be honest, I was also pretty grateful for their hilarious explanation as to my exclusion - according to the logically-challenged Mason Sand, it was because of Company One's commitment to diversity!  That's right: "We are excluding you because of our commitment to diversity."  (Really, you can't make this stuff up.)

I should add, though, that LaCount went well beyond simply playing the liberal guilt card to get what he wanted.  He claimed he would boycott the IRNE ceremony unless I left the organization,  and would talk other companies into boycotting, too.  He threatened that he would not allow his actors to accept their awards should they win.  Which was pretty ironic, since one of those nominated actors - Becca A. Lewis - was on the ballot largely because I argued for her to be there.  So it's also amusing to ponder that if she wins, and I hadn't resigned, LaCount would have ripped the award right out of her hot little hand. That's how much he loves his "collaborators."

And Lewis well may win; like diversity specialist Mason Sand, she has some talent.  But Shawn LaCount, like his sidekick Summer L. Williams (who also specializes in browbeating critics), just doesn't - funny how that works, isn't it - and that's going to hurt more and more as the years go by and Shawn doesn't get the recognition that (like Kati!) he's sure he deserves. To pile irony on irony, however, I should also tell you that I actually argued for a directing nomination for Shawn only a few weeks ago, because I thought he'd done better than usual with his direction of The Aliens; isn't that just a hoot? I was shouted down, though; other IRNE members felt his sterling cast had made him look good, which is probably true.

Anyway - back to the Shawn & Kati show. Mitchell and LaCount were clearly in cahoots, but they weren't alone, I'm afraid; I don't have the full story from anyone on this, but I imagine the usual suspects (Steve Mahler, of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, I'd guess, and maybe the neurotic John Kuntz?, or the weird Mitchell crony Henry Lussier of the Lyric Stage?, perhaps the bitter Debra Wise of Underground Railway Theater?) got involved with drafting a Scary Letter of Outrage against me.  I know, I know - a scary letter!  EEEK!  The IRNE people really need more spine, but to be honest, the situation was more that their spines were just being worn down from the ongoing neurotic frenzy.   Still, I wish I'd been able to read this letter!  I can just imagine: Tom Garvey said "a**hole" in a tweet!  Plus he said Shakespeare was white and James Levine is gay!  He is a terrible stain on your entire organization!  (Remember, Kati Mitchell works for Diane Paulus, so I think she knows from stains on reputations.)

Anyway, long story short, together Shawn and Kati slowly wore the IRNE members down.  Kati didn't threaten to deny them all press tickets (she has done that before, it seems), but I'm sure they feared that was the final step, after the Scary Letter, in her ongoing Inquisition.  They wouldn't actually get rid of me, of course, but I kept getting calls and requests to go to meetings that all revolved around their begging me to censor my blog (and then even my tweets) as if I were writing for the Globe.

In a word, that ain't gonna happen.  So I resigned, just to get the whole thing over with. And the bitch won.  (Yes, you can quote me on that.) Although it may be a pyrrhic victory, at least for Shawn LaCount - for as you can see, my resignation actually means Company One has lost an advocate on the IRNEs.  (And I don't think they've gained any others!)  Of course Shawn couldn't have known that, just as I'm sure he couldn't figure out that Mitchell was playing him for a patsy.  What the other dolts who apparently signed on to Mitchell's letter thought they could possibly gain from it I've no idea.  People do seem to think I have a mysterious influence over other IRNE critics, but rest assured, I don't.  Behind closed doors, my opinion of the quality of the productions at both the ART and Company One is widely shared.  I've really never had to argue against the ART, or Company One - or Steve Mahler, or Ryan Landry, or even David Miller (in fact I'm careful just to never discuss David Miller).

Anyway, for a few days I was very blue.  I thought I wanted to close The Hub Review, in fact. It wasn't that Kati Mitchell "won;" it was, as another critic put it, that her example, along with the fact that several other theatre producers would fall in line behind her, made you not want to go to the theatre at all.  Because Kati's - and Shawn's - vision of the theatre is a place of sleazy, crude gamesmanship overlaid by Harvard "class" and political correctness, where artistic quality comes dead last.  It's creepy - a kind of theatrical hell, in fact. 

And I have to say that this whole affair has set a horrible precedent.  It gives the impression that PR people are setting critical policy - at least at one remove.  Which, in a word, should never happen.  Plus there's the dispiriting sense of what the IRNEs have turned into backstage - a vile exhibition of arm-twisting and back-biting.  It wasn't supposed to be that way.  The IRNEs are entirely a volunteer organization, of critics who do indeed love the art form they cover; they "owe" the grasping Kati Mitchell and Shawn LaCount, as well as the theatre companies they represent, precisely nothing.  And yet both feel entitled to attack and bad-mouth these volunteers at will.  They're just disgusting.

Never fear, however - I'm not abandoning the Hub Review. (Then the bitch really would have won.)  Mitchell and LaCount may have tarnished the IRNEs, but who knows - things change, and if there's any justice, Mitchell will be struck by lightning and a piano will fall on LaCount.  And as my partner pointed out, the only practical difference to me is that now I don't have to cover their mediocre theatre companies anymore.  Because that rogue's gallery of "usual suspects" I listed above - the ART, Company One, et. al. - are, indeed, the shallow end of the theatrical talent pool, the ones who have to lean on money, clout, or political correctness to "win" awards.

So I'll keep writing.  I have to.  If I quit, the amount of theatre coverage in Boston is almost cut in half!  And I'm really not concerned that my reputation for skeptical, fair-minded analysis will be at all impacted by this whole imbroglio.  Everyone knows I'm the strongest, most versatile, and most prolific critic in town.  That's why Kati wants me gone.  But yes, it's true that if you poke me enough, I will respond with a word like a**hole - and that's just the way it is.

Ajax goes AWOL

Brent Harris and Mesafint Goldfeld in Ajax.

The news isn't good from the A.R.T.'s production of Sophocles's Ajax (now through March 13), but at least the news isn't irritating. The production doesn't work, but it also doesn't feel like a fraud the way The Blue Flower and most of Diane Paulus's work has. Ajax feels basically like an old A.R.T. show - indeed, Robert Brustein and Jeremy Geidt are even in it, as part of a video chorus - but, like the vast majority of old A.R.T. shows, it's kind of a pseudo-intellectual bore.  But this time the boredom feels somehow comforting; it's almost like a nostalgia trip.

It's true that director Sarah Benson (of Soho Rep fame) has some interesting ideas about the play - or at least they're interesting on paper; they don't gel on stage, for complex reasons.  Not all the performances are strong (although a few are), and Ms. Benson strikes such a distant stance toward the material that the modern resonances she seems to be looking for (she has updated the action to Afghanistan or Iraq) never actually come clear.  Is Athena supposed to be Condi Rice?  Is that Obama as Odysseus? We wonder such things vaguely at times, but mostly we're thinking, Do I care?

And mostly no, you do not care - although sometimes you do.   Brent Harris looks and sounds great as the gonzo Ajax, for instance (above), and brings a welcome jolt of whiteboy-freakout to every scene he's in.  Still, he doesn't convey Ajax's actual arc - because he, and the production, seem to want to half-pretend Ajax is falling apart because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Unfortunately, that's not what Sophocles is saying; Sophocles is saying that Ajax is a professional killer who has finally gone off his leash ( he attempts to murder Odysseus and the other generals, but due to a delusion brought on by Athena, only succeeds in torturing some livestock).

What society owes such a killer for services rendered is the fundamental question of the play.  And when Benson and Co. finally get around to it, the production finds something like its footing, thanks to a passionate turn by Nathan Darrow as Teucer, the sole defender of the once-glorious, but now suicidal Ajax, and some solid work from James Joseph O'Neil as Menelaus and (believe it or not) Thomas Derrah as Agamemnon.  But up till then the production is consistently undermined by weaker work from Linda Powell (daughter of Colin Powell) as Ajax's captive consort, Tecmessa, and Ron Cephas Jones as a strangely blank Odysseus.

Ajax and his chorus line.

We can sense some of these acting problems are due to a certain absence on the part of the director - she's clearly not quite sure what to make of the matter-of-fact machismo of the play.  But alas, some of the show's conceptual problems are due to her presence.  Benson has decided to place the Chorus of the tragedy up on video screens (kind of like the title sequence for The Brady Bunch) with almost all the lines Sophocles wrote for them given over to Remo Airaldi (who's physically onstage, above).  With most of its actual dialogue missing, the Chorus instead mostly ad-libs lines like, "Whoa, too bad about Ajax going postal, dude."  The results are both banal and weirdly disconnected from the action (perhaps that's the point, but it doesn't work dramatically).  And it's amusing to ponder the number of well-known Harvard profs and hangers-on chosen for this "Chorus" - I guess this is the A.R.T.'s idea of "the common people."  Like the rest of the production, it feels out of touch with reality.