Mar 17, 2010

Hey, Bloomberg Editors

I haven't seen Suzan-Lori Parks' new play The Book of Grace at the Public Theatre. Maybe it's as bad as your lead theater critic, John Simon, says in his review today. You might want to know two things:
1. On an episode of the TV show "Theatre Talk," Simon once dismissed Parks as a social climber for marrying a white man (I haven't seen it, and the video's not available online, but I've heard the report from a few sources).

2. The Book of Grace opens tonight, and it's pretty well-established etiquette to hold reviews, bad or good, until the morning after opening (or late on opening night at the earliest).
Just fyi.

My own feeling is, while it's nice to have a critic around who will choose the arcane word "furibund" over the careworn "furious," I would argue that in Simon's case the tradeoff just isn't worth it.

UPDATE: Time Out's review is also up early.

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