Forum 2003, Stagediary.com

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Crazy for You

Thanks for the opportunity to reply to the defamatory imputations on my abilities as a director in Grant Pegg’s review of Crazy for You.

I have a pretty good reputation as a director around Brisbane. I operate my own theatre company, Stagewise, and other major theatre companies regularly approach me to direct for them. Two best director awards are among the 26 prizes for excellent acting and excellent play productions that Stagewise has won in the one-act theatre festivals it has entered in just three seasons.

So I am not about to stand by and let my reputation be destroyed by some know-it-all who did not get his facts straight. He levelled defamatory criticisms at me based on assertions that are demonstrably false. As I will show here, Pegg besmirched my reputation, and, I believe, the reputation of stagediary.com.

I have no quarrel with Pegg’s opinions per se. Of course he is entitled to express his opinions, no matter what anyone else thinks of them. But opinions in a review are legally required to be based on a substratum of fact and contain no gratuitous defamation. Critics have an obligation to get their facts straight, as the Leo Scofield lobster case demonstrated. In the quoted paragraph below, which is entirely about my direction, Pegg defames my directorial competence. I am providing the entire paragraph (adding sentence numbers) to preserve the context.

“(1)Director Len Granato has incorporated some clever slapstick which often falls flat due to inaccurate timing. (2)The show also labors with long and unnecessary set changes and dead stage time. (3)Pace needs close attention to keep the audience interested. (4)This is a shame as the script is inherently comedic. (5)Two references to Les Miserables are unnecessary to the plot and rather self-indulgent. (6)Staging elements also fail to give closure to some scenes, with action often finishing unexpectedly.”

Sentences 1, 3 and 4 are fair comment, and I have no quarrel with them.

Pegg writes in sentence 2 that some scene changes ran long and resulted in dead stage time. That much is fair comment, but “unnecessary” certainly is not. That “unnecessary” defames me by asserting that I set scenes in inappropriate locales. All the scene changes were necessary and all scenes were located in their proper locales, as the action moved from inside a New York theatre to the street outside the theatre, to a street in Deadrock, Nevada, to inside the saloon, to inside the Deadrock theatre, to outside again, inside to another part of the Deadrock theatre, the street again, back to the New York street, back to the Deadrock street. Playwright Ken Ludwig specified all those scene changes and the score provided scene change music. Pegg’s use of the word “unnecessary” was an error in fact — a falsehood, accidental or intended.

And when Pegg wrote sentence 5 — “Two references to Les Miserables are unnecessary to the plot and rather self-indulgent” — he defamed me again. The Les Mis references are in the script with the notation that they are intended to poke a little fun at Les Mis. Since the Les Mis references are thus necessary to the plot, Pegg wrote another falsehood, intended or accidental. And where’s the self-indulgence? How can Pegg conclude that I “self-indulgently” added those Les Mis references? That would be a highly unethical thing for a director to do. I would never add content (as opposed to interpretation) to a script. So Pegg in effect accused me of unethical behavior based on another of his false assertions of fact. That’s pretty serious.

He defamed me yet again in sentence 6: “Staging elements also fail to give closure to some scenes, with action often finishing unexpectedly”. Unexpectedly for Pegg maybe, but not for the playwright, who put them in the script, nor for me, who followed the script. Pegg gratuitously accused me of directorial failures when he wrote that the “staging elements also fail…”. To fail means to make an unsuccessful attempt. Pegg’s false assumption to the contrary, those abrupt endings were successful attempts. In every one of those scenes, the script calls for an unorthodox, abrupt ending, complete with instructions and segue music in the score. In one scene Ludwig has the leading lady shout just as a trio ends their pleasant, lazy ballad. In another, a character bursts onto the stage and loudly interrupts the leading lady before she can finish the final word of her poignant lament. And in a third the leading man and leading lady do not even sing the final word of their falling-in-love duet as the music segues to the next song. So Pegg again defamed me, this time by falsely by accusing me of failures in staging scenes.

Perhaps reviewing such an unorthodox, complex show was beyond his capabilities. He talked the talk, but I’ve demonstrated conclusively that he did not walk the walk.

Pegg defamed me three times on the basis of intentional or accidental falsehoods. Pegg knew he did not check those facts but went ahead and attacked me anyway. An accidental falsehood occurs when journalists don’t check the facts because they think they know what the facts are or don’t care what the facts are. An intentional falsehood occurs when they make things up. All three mislead readers, erode whatever honesty a review might otherwise contain, and injure the reputation of their media outlet, and of course the reputation of the victim of the falsehoods.

Here’s some free advice for Pegg. When I was reviewing plays in Brisbane for the national theatre magazine Stage Whispers, I applied a rule I learned at the knee of my first editor/mentor in the 1950s — evaluate each work on its own merits. One should judge an artistic work by whether or not it achieves the objectives it sets for itself, assuming the objectives are reasonable for its level of production, not by whether it matches how one thinks it should be presented. And, of course, it should contain no gratuitous defamation. Actually, this letter, which criticises Pegg’s public performance as a critic, is a good example of that rule in action.

Len Granato
2 December, 2003
lgranato@bigpond.net.au

See the review

Response from reviewer

I write in reply to Len Granato’s response to my review.

An overtly inflammatory response instead of a calm, rational one hardly reflects well on anyone’s reputation, least of all its author’s. As such, I am unconvinced that the primary intention of the response to demonstrate factual errors was achieved.

Granato states that a review is an opinion, the Crazy For You review in this case being my opinion. The opinions expressed by the critic are entirely theirs and may be applied across the entire production. This is a critic’s job. That said objectivity has always been the name of the game, and my reviews have always been constructive and, to the best of my knowledge, based on fundamental facts of the production itself.

I resent Granato’s many allegations furiously. It would be rather bold of myself and indeed Stagediary to publish something which was considered obvious defamation. To suggest as such is ludicrous.

I feel the lines in question of my review speak for themselves. However I am prepared to clarify them in order to quash these spurious claims.

In sentence 2 Granato has issue with the word "unnecessary". This word alone does not and cannot defame anyone. This is because it is my opinion. Granato may disagree with this statement, but I believed there to be times in the show where blackouts and much stage time were devoted to a small set change or no change at all. Action or movement during such times would have easily overcome this problem. This remains a director’s prerogative. Change music regularly finished before the set change had concluded. However, the word unnecessary does not, in this instance mean that the director set scenes in inappropriate locales. I did not intend that meaning, nor do I believe the sentence has that implication. The word "unnecessary" was certainly not an “error in fact”, but rather a mere statement of opinion.

Sentence 5 is in reference to a scene in which a pile of chairs is made and the lead characters climb atop it waving a flag. If the scene was presented like this, no Les Miserables reference would have become obvious to me. However, it became obvious when the lead character put on a Les Miserables costume (evidently the costume the cast member wore as Enjolras in that production) and waved a flag. I understand the stage directions in the script state that a pile of chairs is to be made reminiscent of a Les Mis barricade. That is however, where the reference ends. This does not suggest to me that the leading man coincidentally or not should dress as Enjolras and wave a flag as per the famous scene in Les Miserables. This is self-indulgent, in my opinion, because Savoyards presented Les Miserables not long ago, and any regular Savoyards watcher would easily make the connection to Savoyards' specific production. The writers intended this to be subtle humour, and obvious humour is rarely funny. It is a fine line here as to whether it is an insertion or an interpretation as in my opinion this small written stage direction was taken to a new level.

Granato’s issue with sentence 6 is rather laughable. My opinion of the production with respect to Granato’s interpretation or the playwright’s instruction remains my right. I believe that some scenes failed in closure: I refer to one instance where Bobby was dragged away while saying a line, with the scene blacking out. In my opinion, closure of the scene would have been achieved if dialogue was completed before he was dragged away rather than during. It indeed remains the director’s responsibility to interpret the script as he or she sees fit. Such an experienced director should realise that stage directions are not gospel but merely a guide. It again is the director’s prerogative. It was Granato’s interpretation of action in scenes that I had problems with. Abrupt closures are one thing, scenes without closure, in my opinion, are another. What is the point of a director if the script states everything in black and white?

Independent reading of the lines in question would not lead one of rational mind to believe that they impugn Granato’s ethics or attack him. Rather, they are an appraisal of the particular production to which a critic is entitled. I have every confidence that my remarks in no way are defamatory.

Granato has substantiated little by using his opinions in retaliation to my opinions. Of course he believes that he achieved his purpose. Outrageous suppositions by Granato with respect to aspects of my review are unwarranted. It is unprofessional for a director to baselessly attack a critic's opinions and his condescending jabs hardly accentuate his credibility.

I am not so churlish as to accuse Granato of defaming me as I could easily do. Granato obviously has an axe to grind albeit possibly from an unfavourable review. Reviews are opinions; in this review there are not, to my knowledge, the errors of fact claimed by Granato, nor am I satisfied that he has proved as such.

Grant Pegg
4 December, 2003
grantpegg@hotmail.com