Hey You, Mr. Row 20, Seat 5 (I Believe)

Are you the pompous ass who sat through the first half of Spring Awakening at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts this afternoon?

Well, being as I was raised right (something I have strived to overcome but have yet to perfect), I was too polite to contradict your non-indoor-voice critique of the first act.  And as you exited the theater prior to the second, I and my fellow theater-goers did not have the opportunity to do so once the play ended.

You said the acting was horrid.  Perhaps you once trained with John Houseman and are qualified to make such a judgment, but in my limited experience in this area, I thought the acting professional,  effective and engaging.

You said you didn’t care what happened to any of the characters as there was no plot.  Really?  The boy about to end his brief life rather than face disappointing his family was not worthy of your interest?  What about a girl beaten into submission by her father? Or the one molested by hers. 

Perhaps a young man questioning the existence of hope, truth, God, and a purpose to it all?  A woman/child dying from an abortion performed against her will.  Oh, that’s right, you didn’t stick around for that.

You said the music was “Pablum . . . something played on Disney Radio.”  Was it The Bitch of Living or Totally Fucked that most struck you when you observed this?

You might want to familiarize yourself with a wider range of music before you pop off.  I am no music historian or even someone with a vast collection of music, yet I was able to recognize a variety of influences—from Three Penny Opera to Depeche Mode.

Having said all that, none of your actual criticism is what bothers me most (although, it does bother me).  You were there as the guest of a friend who bought season tickets, and you very graciously, patronizingly, told her it certainly wasn’t her fault the play was crap, leaving her apologizing to you as you left the theater. 

As someone who was raised right, I would have stayed in my seat no matter how much I disliked the show since I was there was there with a friend.  But you decided that music, plotting and acting which held no interest for you rated higher than an afternoon with a friend.  That, in the words of lyricist Steven Sater, is totally fucked.

◊

In case it isn’t clear, I liked the play.  The themes of alienated youth, asking big questions, sexual awakening and the like are not new—they have been explored for as long as the written word existed, I imagine.  But that’s sort of the point: they never go away.

Good artists manage to revisit these themes in ways different from those who came before; and that makes the subject not only still relevant, but interesting.