{"id":86875,"date":"2024-01-24T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=86875"},"modified":"2024-01-22T11:32:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T17:32:43","slug":"taking-out-the-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=86875","title":{"rendered":"Taking Out The Improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My college theatre professor, Pat Lavin, used to talk about one of her jobs when she was an LA theatrical producer and director – which was going in to have a series of rehearsals with long-running shows to “take out the ‘improvements'” that’d crept into the show over months or years of live performances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sounds like writers need to come back from the grave and do the same thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The Guthrie Theatre keeps sending me begging letters.  Please, please come see a show to support us.   We need the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, okay, what are you showing?  “Dial M for Murder,” hey, I know that one, it’s a classic.  Wait, what’s this in the description<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While in London promoting her new murder mystery, Maxine drops in on her former lover Margot who shares some distressing news: She\u2019s being blackmailed for a love letter from Maxine that went missing after their affair ended . . . This clever, fast-paced adaptation adds extra layers to the iconic tale, making the \u201cWill he get away with it?\u201d question even more thrilling.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember “Dial M for Murder.”  There were no lesbians.  I can’t see that this “clever, fast-paced adaption” adds anything worthwhile to the story.  It looks to me like base pandering.  That’s why the Guthrie needs money, because they’re so busy signaling their virtue that nobody wants to see their shows.  They can’t just tell a good story, they must “improve” it by making it a morality tale, by beating their audience over the head with how hip and woke and sensitive they are.  They must bastardize every classic into boring message fiction, even though “boring message fiction is the leading cause of puppy-related sadness” and people really shouldn’t make puppies sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nope, not going.  Which saves me a c-note or more, with dinner and parking, so silver lining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Doakes, staying home but not in Como Park<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I’m all for updated retellings of classics. For example, “Richard III<\/a>” set in the 1930s was brilliant, because it showed the eternal truths of the original play in a setting – interwar Europe – where those truth were acting in real time within living memory. (Perhaps a version set in the 2020 election would be in order). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So – how is Dial M<\/em> improved with an extraneous lesbian sub-plot?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m open to suggestions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My college theatre professor, Pat Lavin, used to talk about one of her jobs when she was an LA theatrical producer and director – which was going in to have a series of rehearsals with long-running shows to “take out the ‘improvements’” that’d crept into the show over months or years of live performances. Sounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e","category-pc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86876,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86875\/revisions\/86876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}