lazy

[GavestonPS]

The Texas petition was the one I wanted to grant, so I only paid attention to that.

***

Jungle Red, two men kissing in the mid-1960s was a helluva lot louder than a gun shot, I promise you. But I hope your teacher only meant that's all the playwright HAS to write, not that that is all she is allowed to write and expect to be honored.

I've taught playwriting myself and sometimes young playwrights get so busy staging the work in their own mind that they forget to put it down on paper. It can be helpful to say, "Cool it with the stage directions for this draft." But playwrights often create detailed on-stage worlds and it's only narcissism on the part of directors and designers that causes those details to be ignored.

For the record, I might also defend the right of a thoughtful director to ignore a playwright's stage direction if the director truly believes another choice is better for his interpretation of the play. But that's not the same thing as just shrugging off the playwright's instructions because some twit doesn't understand what playacting is.

[goldenboy]

The kiss sounded comically homophobic. Is it possible he objected for those reasons?

Without really asking the actor or not being there... we just don't know the truth.

[GavestonPS]

It's possible. But it sounds like every attempt was made to contact the actor in question.

I have trouble believing any actor would avoid the NY TIMES because s/he had taken a stand in favor of fairer representation of gay people.

Of course I don't pretend to understand the psychology of Texans. Why are they so damn proud of that big, empty space? (This is a joke. I don't know that the actor in question is even from Texas.)

[Mister Matt]

Matt, do you really think a same-sex kiss was incidental in a 1960s musical?

For comic effect, absolutely. Especially in a 1960s musical, I can't imagine it existing for any other reason than an incidental moment for a cheap laugh.

And while I appreciate ghostlight2's sense of fairness, hasn't Texas earned our scorn by now?

Wile I agree there are reasons to scorn Texas specifically (though that's true of nearly every state), I don't think this is one of them, since it really isn't indicative of the state, or even the city of Dallas, itself.

[GavestonPS]

Again, just kidding, and I think Texas has earned that much.

But as for the kiss, we are using different meanings of the word "incidental". Do I think a same-sex kiss was played for laughs in the 1960s? Absolutely. That doesn't make it automatically trivial or incidental in the scheme of the show.

It does, however, make it even sillier if an actor objected on religious grounds. Not even LEVITICUS bans same-sex kissing!