LOOK UNDER THE SKIRT

posted by James Reel

    I may not feel up to coming in for my air shift today, but at least I can sit here in the comfort of my home office, a dog literally at my feet, with an advance copy of Hilary Hahn's Mozart sonata CD playing on the computer, and pass along a bit of theater gossip.
    Beowulf Alley, the promising newish theater company operating out of the former Johnny Gibson building downtown, will open Criminal Hearts on Sept. 23. This is one of several scripts credited to "Jane Martin," supposedly a Kentucky-based writer who never gives interviews and has never been seen in public. The Beowulf Alley people are repeating the rumor that Jane Martin is actually the pseudonym of writer-director Jon Jory, the man who adapted and directed Pride and Prejudice, now on the boards at Arizona Theatre Company. You can find a summary of the identity issue here.
    Here's what I find annoying amid all the speculation about Jory: People on the one hand posit that Jory uses the Jane Martin pseudonym to give himself credibility when writing about women and women's issues, yet on the other hand they suggest that Jory writes these plays in collaboration with some woman, perhaps his wife, who is a costume designer rather than a playwright.
    It's ridiculous to think that a man can't write with intelligence and sensitivity about women. But there are people who maintain, stridently, that only women can write about women, African Americans about African Americans, and so forth. All I can say is that someone who lacks the imagination and empathy to write about someone other than himself or herself has no business being a playwright. And someone lacking the imagination and empathy to believe that playwrights can write about "the other" has no business criticizing those who can.