This play sounds interesting
It’s called “Admissions,” and it’s by Joshua Harmon, and I’m surprised it was ever even produced, given the current political climate:
It’s a relentless, often very funny exposé of the hypocrisies and self-contradictions of the diversity craze that defines virtually every elite campus in America…
The New York City theater scene is so insular ”” virtually everyone on both sides of the curtain is of the Left ”” that it paradoxically offers far more space for self-questioning than you’d expect. Because it’s simply assumed that no Republicans are listening in, ever, progressives in theater fall into animated quarrels among themselves about the defects in their own moral reasoning. Admissions is what happens when they’re forced to work through the injustices created by their social-justice obsession. Late at night. After a couple of glasses of pinot noir.
I can’t say I have my pulse on the finger of the New York City theater scene. In fact, I’m not even acquainted with it at this point; the last time I went to the theater in New York was several years ago, and before that it was several years earlier.
You have to take out a mortgage to be able to go to the theater these days, anyway.
But my impression is that “self-questioning” on the left—through the mechanism of theater, or otherwise—is vanishingly small. I’ve certainly spent a lot of time among New Yorkers of the liberal/left sort, and I see few to no “quarrels [animated or calm] among themselves about the defects in their own moral reasoning.” That’s why “Admissions” sounds like a very interesting evening in the theater.
An evening a bit like one I spent a few years ago in a more local New England venue, attending a revival of a play that had been produced in New York in 2005 [*see below], entitled “Third” and written by Wendy Wasserstein, a Tony and Pulitzer-winning playwright whose work was often celebrated by feminists.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the play. Here’s a description of it (in an obituary for Wasserstein, who died in 2006):
The heroine is a campus feminist crusader growing weary of a battle in which the victories don’t seem to get beyond the ivy walls. Snarling at the Iraq war on the television, the character comes to question the worth of the struggle–and even arrives at a tender rapprochement with a young, conservative student. Some critics read it as a kind of submission.
…[T]he play’s main theme is how a feminist writer of a certain age finds that her longtime political struggle is ultimately eclipsed by the spiritual and personal demands of confronting the mortality of those she loves, and of herself.
But that doesn’t really describe the play as I saw it. Actually, it was very funny—at least, I laughed uproariously many times as I watched it. But I was often the only one in the theater laughing, as I couldn’t help but notice when my laugh rang out load and clear and lonely throughout the large theater. Many of the laughs came at the expense of that “heroine” (main character), a professor whose relentless progressivism and resultant anger at anyone even close to being on the right results in narrow-mindedness combined with self-righteousness, and leads to a false accusation towards a conservative student.
Progressives don’t come out well at all in the play. It was almost shocking at the time to see it, so used had I become to the trashing of conservatives and the elevation of liberals in any play I saw, even plays that didn’t have a political theme at all.
This new play, “Admissions,” sounds as though it might be in that same vein.
[* “Third” was produced in New York by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and “Admissions” is also at Lincoln Center.]
[NOTE: In this post from 2005 I wrote about the ubiquity of gratuitous anti-conservative political digs in artistic efforts. My general impression is that the problem’s only gotten worse since then.]
…the ubiquity of gratuitous anti-conservative political digs in artistic efforts…
Ten years ago I took an online Stanford programming course and was surprised to find digs at George Bush in the exams and sample exams. Computer science exams!
Ironicially the instructor, David Cheriton, a billionaire because he was one of the first investors in Google, came out in 2010 against the Obama-era hostility towards free enterprise and entrepreneurs. He also denied the importance of climate change and insisted the government shouldn’t be involved in emission cuts.
I lost all of my San Francisco communities because I either fought the constant progressive line I heard or I just got sick of listening.
It’s not just New York theatah (stet) that’s Left. I know perhaps the only conservative in Houston who is both out of the closet politically and works in theater. There are many companies that just won’t even allow him to audition. Because tolerance, or some such.
“the ubiquity of gratuitous anti-conservative political digs in artistic efforts.”
Sad to say, but, I am finding such “digs” in the work place today as well.
I did say something to a manager along the lines of “partisan politics shouldn’t be in the work place” and he just shrugged it off.
The problem is, unlike artistic work, I cannot avoid working for a living. And, in general, I like my job; my manger isn’t the one who mouths off, nor his manager either. So, I just “hunker down” and try my level best to ignore the mouthy liberals.
And, it has only gotten worse since Trump’s election.
Yes, it has gotten worse.
No, they don’t have a clue how other people view their “liberal” angst.
Youngest Son wanted to go into theater; we decided his only option, to avoid both political confrontations and problems with language and “situations” that he would not participate in on stage, was to go to BYU.
He shifted to computer science once he got the drama bug out of his system (and the money is better), but he ended up at Google, which is looking to have the same problems as theater — for the same reasons, no doubt.
Sigh.
You really can’t win in a rigged game.
On the spreading infection of politics into art (or at least entertainment), I just read this article on the subject.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/03/24/gaming-inclusivity-and-condemning-history-by-amanda-s-green
“Anyone who is familiar with video games knows there’s been a movement for the last few years by major developers to be more “inclusive”. That inclusivity appears in a number of different ways: disclaimers at the beginning of a game touting how the game was developed by people of all different races, religions, creeds and sexual orientations; additions of non-heterosexual romantic plots and characters, both playable and non-playable. We’ve seen outrage when those characters aren’t given large enough roles or when the main character isn’t customizable enough to meet every single player’s demands. Amid all this, all too often we lose quality.”
(final grafs)
“The answer is really very simple. It is trying to show how inclusive and “enlightened” it is to stop the complaints from a small but vocal group. Fortunately for the company, Assassin’s Creed: Origins is a good game, a really good game on the whole. But there should be no place in it for narrator intrusion such as there is in the Discovery Tour. That, to me, was like watching a show and suddenly having a character — or member of the orchestra — stand up and lecture on why something that is happening on stage is wrong by today’s standard. It throws me out of the narrative and makes me wonder if I dare continue watching.
I game to unwind and have fun. I don’t game to be lectured to or to have history rewritten because something about it is now “inconvenient”. If it doesn’t have anything to do with the plot of the game, don’t do it.
Hmm, sort of like how I like my movies and my books.
In other words, if you feel the need to preach, be subtle about it. If you are heavy-handed enough to throw me out of the narrative, you will find me second-guessing if I need to buy that next bit of DLC or that next game.”
Actually, it was very funny–at least, I laughed uproariously many times as I watched it. But I was often the only one in the theater laughing, as I couldn’t help but notice when my laugh rang out load and clear and lonely throughout the large theater.
I am reminded of going with some friends to watch the movie Tess – from the Hardy novel- in Argentina. I laughed at some uproarious scenes which lampooned those pretending to belong to a higher social class. The humor didn’t quite make the translation to subtitles, as I was the only one laughing. The next day, some other friends told me they had also been at the movie- and could easily hear that I was there.
So is conservatism a foreign language to the liberals? 🙂
You have to take out a mortgage to be able to go to the theater these days, anyway.
Times have changed. My senior hear in high school, a friend and I went down to NYC one Saturday. We purchased some play tickets, which I found quite affordable on my minimum wage restaurant job.
Somewhat on a subsidiary topic, as in, who’s doing all this complaining anyway?
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/03/24/gaming-inclusivity-and-condemning-history-by-amanda-s-green/#comment-521296
“I wish I’d bookmarked the article, but a few weeks ago, “there was a wave of protests” about a company’s new policy on something. The people at the company started tracking back the complaints, and found that all but a few came from ten individuals in a foreign country, who were using multiple names and spoofing tools.”
“So is conservatism a foreign language to the liberals? 🙂” – Gringo
Um, yeah?
https://pjmedia.com/video/actors-casting-call-surprised-real-gun-facts-theyre-asked-read/
“Here is what happens when people on both sides of the gun conversation in America are able to be heard. The producers of this video had a variety of actors cold read statistical truths about guns and crime in the United States. Much of this is known to pro-Second Amendment advocates but not to the general public. It is difficult to have a fact-based conversation when the largely uninformed anti-gun left is running around screaming “ASSAULT WEAPONS” all of the time and the media is always there to amplify their panic. One of the younger actors admits that he just “blindly chose a side” in the gun debate. Another says she is now inspired to do more research. At the very minimum, the video is full of good information for pro-Second Amendment people.”
It’s not just art and entertainment that’s infected by politics.
When they came for the vegans….
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/veganism-white-masculinity-sociologist-claims-connection/
As ridiculous as claims like Mycek’s may sound, this is not the first time that someone has come out to declare veganism problematic. In May, a social-justice blogger maintained that modern veganism “completely erases” trans people. In April, a student complained in an op-ed that people need to do more to make veganism more “intersectional” and inclusive. Earlier this year, two professors wrote an article claiming that Beyoncé’s support for veganism “reproduces existing patterns of discrimination and inequality.”
Oh, and by the way – it’s definitely not as if veganism is the only diet that the social-justice crowd sees as having offensive aspects to it. In fact, last year, a professor claimed that eating meat promotes “hegemonic masculinity” and “gender hegemony.”
” ‘Admissions’ [the play] is what happens when they’re forced to work through the injustices created by their social-justice obsession. Late at night. After a couple of glasses of pinot noir.”
That is saying that Progs find truth only after a couple doses of a mind-altering substance. They’ve been engaged in this search for a loong time, using a variety of substances (LSD, anyone?)’
Next morning, of course they have forgotten all about the night before, and are once again plugged into the Prog machine.
We are going to see this in NY on May 2…..if it runs that long!
LOL!
You weren’t physically assaulted? Did you bring the Glock?