Friday, April 16, 2010

Dear Mr. Pacino:

Dear Mr. Pacino:

I have always admired your work from afar, so it pains me to be the one to tell you this.
In case you are away, working on some movie or some such and haven't been able to follow the off-off(off?) Broadway scene here in New York, you should know that your name and reputation are being dragged through the mud.
Let me explain.
Currently, the American Theatre of Actors is performing Henry V. On the playbill, on the back, under, "This production has been made possible by," along with the usual foundations, appears your name.
Now, while I don't know how much you did to make this production possible--and I suspect not much--I also don't know if you've ever got a chance to see it.
I hope not, but if you did, I am sure you would petition to have your name nowhere near this thing. For Mr. Pacino, the ATA's recent production of Henry V may be the most wretched thing on a New York stage, since, well, the ATA's production of Taming of the Shrew.
I hesitate to even call this thing a play. This is actors--a term I use advisedly--showing that they have memorized their lines, woodenly waiting until one has finished before, with a sigh, beginning their own oration. When a conversation happens between the players, they may as well be talking to a wall. The actors literally bang on their chests as if in a neanderthal parody. It is a production without a point or a pulse.
Mr. Pacino, if you truly had any part in making this play possible, stop. If you did not, and your name has somehow been attached to it without your consent, do everything you can, please, to redress this injustice.
Your reputation can survive another Devil's Advocate.
No way it survives any more by ATA.

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