Rights of the right

IN the thousand words or so Charles McNulty wrote on the tiny tempest surrounding the New York Theater Workshop’s canceled production of “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” somehow he couldn’t find the space to mention the reasons why some might object to its portrayal.

Instead he wrote breathlessly, and uncritically, of the theater world’s “courage” and “brave” and “progressive vision.” He tells readers that something that is controversial doesn’t need “balance.” [“ ... the value of ‘balance’ ... has rendered the network news impotent.”]

It’s called being informative. Some even call it journalism.

If McNulty truly desired a theater devoid of “black and white” perspectives, he wouldn’t laud the unrelieved slate of “progressive” and “left-leaning” plays which completely dominate the stage nowadays (with ever-shrinking audiences). And if he honestly wished for theater to “tackle taboos, flout received ideas and deepen debate,” I can’t think of any taboo more unspeakable in the suffocatingly incestuous theater world than a right-of-center perspective. But then to write plays in support of such views (without “balance”) would take a true act of courage, of the theater career-killing variety, wouldn’t it? I wonder if McNulty would ever have the courage to write (as he does of certain “progressive” works) that they “make up in courage and conviction what they lack in sophisticated artistry.”

ALISTAIR LATOUR

Los Angeles