Word: pachter
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After Adam Pachter maintained in a Crimson On Arts review that he found the casting of two Black characters in the Leverett House production of Chicago offensive ("Chicago's Razzle-dazzle Fizzles," Nov. 9), the Crimson received several letters, all of which denounced the review. Some correspondents went so far as to denounce Pachter himself, claiming that his review betrays his own knee-jerk racism...
...couple of these letter express chagrin at Pachter's accusations of director Beth Heller's "racist casting." This kind of response to this kind of statement is understandable, even laudable. But Pachter never makes this accusation. He instead writes that the two Black, non-chorus players were given "degrading roles for Black actors to play." Actress Lenore Jones was given the role of Mama, whom Pachter calls "sick and lecherous," and actor Tym Tombar was given the role of Amos, whom Pachter calls "simple, subservient, and constantly humiliated by his white, adulterous wife...
...also offer to "inform readers of [the productions'] content." While underscoring your slant toward those who have not seen the production, this statement implies that a summary of "contents" is a substitue or supplement to actually seeing the performance. Plot summary, which takes up roughly a quarter of Adam Pachter's Endgame review, provides nothing more than theatrical Cliff's Notes, inadequate for readers who haven't seen the show, and redundant for those who have. If plot summary allowed you to understand two hours of performance, then drama would never have been invented, and Shakespeare would have been...
Naturally, an undergraduate reviewer cannot be expected to possess the depth of knowledge necessary to recognize departures from convention every week and then to analyze them. They must restrict themselves to the honorable trade of college reviewers: helping readers decide how to spend the weekend. Pachter spends virtually all of his review relating (1) what Beckett plays are like to watch (i.e. unconventional, disturbing), and (2) how the actors were to watch He gives two scant sentences to the director's choices. He never hints at issues of staging or interpretation, such as the show's conformity with or departures...