To the editor: Generally, maybe you simply want a girl to evaluate a play written, carried out and directed by girls.
Charles McNulty is an clever, insightful critic. However he missed the mark in his piece on “Indignant, Raucous, and Shamelessly Beautiful” on the Geffen (“‘Indignant, Raucous, and Shamelessly Beautiful’ lives as much as its title, however the plot lumbers,” June 19). Whereas he perfunctorily praised the actors, set design and manufacturing, he opined it was “hamstrung with exposition” with “sluggish” writing and a plot “like an outdated automobile whose engine simply refuses to start out on a chilly winter night.” In doing so, he completely missed the purpose.
The very options he dismisses made the play. It isn’t nearly growing older and intergenerational change “swerv[ing] unexpectedly … right into a cutesy fairy story.” It’s about girls, on this case Black girls, who’re pressured to mouth the phrases of males and captively hearken to them whereas being invisible besides as erotic props. So the phrases on this play, spoken by the actors, all have nice that means.
There was not a fairy story ending, however slightly a tough alternative made by a powerful older girl to embrace herself whereas empowering and supporting a youthful girl. The viewers understood, as evidenced by its rapt consideration and a standing ovation.
I count on most ladies critics would have gotten it. McNulty didn’t.
Vicki Freimann, La Cañada Flintridge
