Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Chock full of bloggy goodness, Part II

Are you reading Terry Teachout? If you're not, you don't know what you're missing. Here's a sample of his work, exerpted from his column in the Wall Street Journal, for whom he is the drama critic:

So you've been waiting all summer for yet another play about the Hollywood blacklist? Well, breathe easier. "Trumbo," which opened last night at the Westside Theatre, is a left-wing version of "Love Letters" in which Nathan Lane reads from the correspondence of Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter best remembered as one of the "Unfriendly Ten" witnesses who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee's 1947 probe of Communist activities in Hollywood and were later jailed for contempt of Congress. Gordon MacDonald plays Christopher Trumbo, Dalton's son and the author of "Trumbo," who in the play doubles as his father's straight man. Both actors use scripts, and Peter Askin's direction consists of having Mr. MacDonald walk from one side of the stage to the other and back again. (Mr. Lane sits at a desk.)

Would that "Trumbo" were half as involving as "Love Letters," but it barely resembles a play at all. Instead, Mr. MacDonald/Trumbo says something obsequious about Mr. Lane/Trumbo, who responds by reading a letter, a two-stroke cycle repeated for 90 intermission-free minutes. The "action" begins with a brief re-enactment of Trumbo's testimony before HUAC, after which he is (1) blacklisted, (2) goes to prison for 10 months, (3) moves to Mexico, (4) writes screenplays under assumed names, one of which wins an Oscar, (5) is rehabilitated by Kirk Douglas, who insists that he be given an on-screen credit for "Spartacus," (6) writes more screenplays under his own name and (7) dies a hero of the American left. All this is laid out in numbingly rigid chronological order, accompanied by a didactic slide show consisting of such useful items as a long list of blacklistees (some of whose names are misspelled).

Not only is "Trumbo" dull, it's shifty. . . viewers will likely come away supposing that his only deeply held conviction was that it is immoral to inform on your friends.

In fact, Dalton Trumbo was a man of firm convictions -- so long as they were in robotic accord with the oft-changing dictates of the American Communist Party, of which he was a card-carrying member from 1943 to 1948. A red-hot Stalinist of the old school, he supported every twist and turn in the party line, even bragging about how he and his fellow Hollywood Reds had succeeded in keeping anti-Communist scripts from being produced (which sounds suspiciously like blacklisting to me). . .

One thing "Trumbo" does make clear, albeit unintentionally, is that its subject was a smug, sanctimonious windbag who suffered from the mistaken notion that he was funny. It would also have been worth pointing out that he was a well-compensated Hollywood hack who paid his party dues (and bought his luxurious California ranch) by cranking out such deathless masterpieces as "The Flying Irishman," "Sorority House," "Kitty Foyle," "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Tender Comrade." One might well call him a limousine Leninist, though I prefer the crack Billy Wilder made about the Unfriendly Ten: "Only one of them had talent. The rest were just unfriendly."

. . .

In any case, the cast of "Trumbo" is no more relevant than the play itself. What we have here, rather, is a quasi-religious ritual of self-congratulation, an opportunity for progressives to join together in celebrating the life of a fearless defender of the true faith, while simultaneously chipping in to fight the good fight. A note in the program states that "a portion of the proceeds will benefit People for the American Way." It strikes me that the producers might also want to consider making a similar donation to the families of the 20 million Soviet citizens who died at the hands of the murderous regime Dalton Trumbo esteemed so highly and for so long. I'm not counting on it, though.

But I don't get the Wall Street Journal, I hear you whine.

Well, Teachout alone is worth the price of the Friday edition. Not to mention, you might learn something about those stockmarkets you're pouring all that 401(k) dough into.

But I'm too cheap to buy the Wall Street Journal, you say.

Sigh. Never fear, my little chickadees; Aunty Jane has even the most parsimonious among you covered.

You see, Mr. Teachout has a blog. An awfully, awfully good blog. Which you should go read right now. Right after you've thanked Aunty Jane for steering you right once again.

You're welcome my little chickadees. Go in peace.

Posted by Jane Galt at September 8, 2003 06:00 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links