Furthermore

Here's the thing. First of all, I really do mean it when I saw that I don't mind Garvey's endless criticism of me and my work. He is allowed to hate it. But here's what bothers me about it. It's the unspoken assumption that the people who are making this "tripe" are somehow some kind of fat cats who are just interested in selling pap to the masses and have neither integrity nor understanding. Garvey's cynicism is projected onto the objects of his criticism. It never seems to occur to him that dozens and dozens of people are working incredibly hard for weeks, many hours a day, for very little pay, not to be praised and extolled - because, let's face it, even the great reviews in a town like this don't really add up to much - but to make something that expresses their relationship to a story, in the hopes that people will be moved, entertained, and provoked by it. And if people are moved, entertained and excited, maybe that's actually a good thing, even if it doesn't fit into a certain reviewers presumptions about what a play is supposed to be about.

Rather than constantly saying, "this work is a transcendent work, and look how vile these people are to expect us to be excited by their trivial, trashy, trendy tripe - and yes, see, people are fooled, but isn't that just the worst? - maybe say, "people are moved, entertained and seem to enjoy this stuff, maybe they've tapped into a useful piece of this story." Because no production is going to encapsulate all the glory that exists in our minds when we imagine a play we love. But it's actually going to be in the world, and we're actually going to share it together, which is what the damn things were written for in the first place.