LTE: Another Response To The Review Of Big Love

To the Editor:

I clearly can tell that this author does not have the adequate background or research to create such outlandish claims in the review of Big Love. He may not have liked the performance but his comments were simply not rooted with real research. For one I can clearly tell that he did not read the play. Which is funny because you’d think that if you’re writing about a performance that you’d read it. If any true research was done to create a greater understanding about the play and the playwright, the author, chandler ford, would have easily found a free publication of the production on the playwright’s website at this link: http://www.charlesmee.org/big-love.shtml.

This was the script we used and most of the staging issues and assertions that the author critisizes would likely be answered if he actually read the script.

Also, as a member of the cast, I was not solicited for any questions or intrigue about the play or our work that culminated in the performance. I have asked several members of the production staff, the stage management, the cast, and our director and no one has said that they were asked for any insight to the work being done. We would have been happy to provide Mr. Ford any questions he may have had regarding our interpretation of the text. If any sort of inquisitive research was done in that regards there may have been knowledge that the cast and our director had personal correspondence with Mr. Mee, the author of the play.

Futhermore, such a publication did nothing to promote our show and allow your readers to achieve their own opinions regarding their reaction to the play. The article simply lashes out at a performance which I think provides a negative association with the plays that the theatre department produces; which often times aren’t as well known to the Boston College community.

You say that this article will not be taken down as it did not technically say anything innappropriate and was simply a reactional response to his observance of the show. However, I don’t need to ask, but the author clearly did not provide any coherent investigatory journalism in regards to corroborating any of his assertions. He clearly did not provide us a due diligent review. It’s harsh, and grounded with ignorance in the work of the play, the genre, and the author.

Furthermore, he is simply promoting bad press and association to the theatre department and the productions that we put on. The article does nothing to promote genuinely intellectual analysis of a piece of art that we struggle to provide to the Boston College community. It is so harsh that I find that it may generate a negative association to the work that the theatre department creates for our college. The article barely skims the surface to highlight the acting or human connection to the text, that we as a cast worked on for nearly two months to achieve. Also the article does nothing to highlight any of the true themes of marriage, gender stereotypes, personal identity, sexuality, promotion of justice, and the importance of love, that may be discussed as a response from the play. That was our true intention; to promote intellectual stimulation and debate. Yet the author simply criticized the cohesiveness and the continuity of the performance.

In that regard, I think the article is offensive. Clearly it does not promote an intellectual response of critical analysis or debate to theatrical arts. It only promotes your readers to negatively attribute the theatre department and the production staff who are hired through the Boston College theatre department. As a whole these sort of outlandish assertions simply do not promote the arts at BC, but belittles them. And as a liberal arts school, the university attempts to provide students with the most well rounded and versed understanding of various humanities. This negative attack, in my mind, denigrates a true intellectual stimulation that university stands for and trys to promote.

With that I strongly urge the editing staff to please reconsider taking down this article!

Sincerely,

Nick Gennaro

CSOM ’16

Featured Image by Julia Hodgens / Heights Staff