The Weakly Planet printed another letter. Regardless, the editor after having seen the play is siding with Mr. Lieb.
“Self-Righteous Justifications
I wish to offer my opinion of Mark Leib’s self-righteous justifications for his desecration of March of the Kitefliers (Letters, Aug. 17-23).I was involved with theater for nearly two decades - and no, I have never been involved or affiliated with Jobsite - from the standpoint of both cast and crew. Each time I read a review from a professional reviewer, I’m struck by the dichotomy between their words and Mark’s, as each review Mark writes reminds me more and more of Ionesco’s Professor holding up an empty hand, shrilly shrieking “Knife! Knife! Knife!” as he stabs at his student. With his latest review of Jobsite’s production of a wonderful and unique play, he seeks to kill that which he did not - and could not - create, and couches his lukewarm apologies for spoiling the theatergoers’ experience in high-flown language, showing his purported moral and literary superiority.
That Mark chose to reveal a rather critical plot point indicates not that he “could not write a coherent review of the play” without destroying one of the highlights of the production, but that he felt a sense of entitlement to act as he so chose, willfully disregarding what makes the theater a wonderful experience: its wonder, its majesty, and its mystery.
Mark states that “A play’s assumptions are essential to any critic’s argument; its conclusions are for the spectator alone.” Ironic, then, that he would provide a conclusion based solely on his assumptions of what the reader needed to hear.
Mark found the play “half-inspired, half-formulaic.” His apology is, if you will excuse the vitriol, half-assed.
Jonathan M. Northwood
Portland, Ore.”
August 25th, 2005 at 11:14 pm
Well said. Neil, I know it’s too late for the contest, but I found this poem at Dirty Mike and I thought you should see it.
silly beginnings
I like you, trout.
your eyes are weird.
you look at me,
but you also look at my foot.
what does that look like?
a foot-face?
Keep sucking at the air.
it’s so cute.
if it wasn’t so cute,
I might put you back in the water.
but you look like a teething baby,
which is cute,
so I will not.
Your gills are crazy.
they ripple and flex.
If I had a car,
I would want it to have gills
that ripple and flex
along each door.
and I would want them to be gooey and fleshy,
and I would stick my arm through the fleshy goo
while I was driving,
and flip you off
through my gill flaps.
August 26th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
Sorry they pissed you off so much! Maybe focus on your NWB party tomorrow!
I’ll be there!!
August 27th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
Don’t worry, I’m not really down. It’s hard to be when we extended the show and closing night was still nearly sold out!!!
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:50 am
Neil — the Weekly Planet hasn’t won a journalim award that I’ve known of since it fired its news staff. Quality and accountability no longer seem to register in their priorities. They’re like spoiled college dropouts with personality disorders. They’re out of touch, shrill and puff up to make up for what they lack. It’s a BS I found really hard to tolerate during my last days. I was hoping they were improving. I was gunning for them when David Warner came along. Sadly, the fact that Mark’s review got past *3* rounds of proofing and copy editing, not including the feature editor’s initial read for content, is disturbing proof of slack apathy on their part. I honestly feel embarrassed for them.