Playwright Writes Back
Dear Editor:
New Voices reporter Manya Treece recently profiled me in her article “The Playwright and the Hand That Feeds Him.” According to Ms. Treece, my art is so radical and “potentially controversial” that my inclusion in the Six Points Fellowship – a grant funded by the United Jewish Appeal – constitutes a shocking development in the history of Jewish arts funding.
To support her thesis, Ms. Treece highlights the most conventionally “shocking” aspects of my work, conveniently withholding any necessary context. Her most disturbing distortion is the claim that my play, “The Last Chanukah,” includes “kindergarteners engaging in oral sex.”
I must admit: I don’t take kindly when people accuse me of being a child pornographer.
Ms. Treece attended the first work-in-progress reading of “The Last Chanukah.” In that version of the show, I played the headmaster of an absurdly left-wing Hebrew school. At the end of the piece, the students, played by adult actors, perform their “Radical Queer Revisionist Chanukah Pageant,” an over-the-top, post-colonial reinterpretation of the Maccabee legend.
The Pageant begins with two students playing Alexander the Great and Aristotle. They discuss Greek national identity while engaging in barely-simulated, purposefully-over-acted, fully-clothed (and very historical) intercourse.
To reiterate, we’re talking about adults, playing children, playing adults, vaguely grinding against each other while theorizing about imperialism and the nature of selfhood.
This was a very complicated moment in a very complicated play, in which very serious intellectual issues were regularly juxtaposed with absurd, freaky imagery. And yet, disregarding all serious context, Ms. Treece reduced this moment to its most shocking components in her attempt to portray me as a fringe artist. (Furthermore, her reduction was inaccurate – if they’d been having oral sex, at least one of them wouldn’t have been able to speak!)
I do not believe that Ms. Treece is a homophobe. However, it is worth noting that gay people such as myself are regularly accused of pedophilia by the forces of heterosexism. It is a cheap scare tactic, and I am disappointed to see a Jewish writer play into those stereotypes.
I want to thank New Voices for clarifying this issue in the online version of the article, and hope that such slander can be avoided in the future.
Peace,
Dan Fishback
Editor’s Response
The article did not intentionally imply that actual children were involved in the portrayal of sex acts in Dan Fishback’s play. I regret the admittedly unclear language that might have led readers to draw that conclusion, and apologize to Mr. Fishback for any distress we may have caused. However, I reject the notion that these unclear phrases amount to an accusation of pedophilia, or that homophobia or heterosexism played any part in the critiques elaborated in this piece.
Josh Nathan-Kazis
Editor, New Voices
Author’s Response
I would like to clarify that Dan Fishback’s play-in-progress did not show kindergarten students engaging in oral sex; rather, it featured
adult actors portraying second graders who were simulating oral sex onstage. I apologize for my mistake. That said, however, Mr. Fishback’s insinuation that this error was “a force of heterosexism” is irresponsible in its attempt to distract readers from the central thesis of my article, which concerns Mr. Fishback’s artistry, not his sexual preference.
Manya Treece
The Thing We’ve Got Going
I’ve recently been reading New Voices more regularly and more thoroughly. I think you’ve got a great thing going. The New Voices “voice” is a vitally important one in the greater Jewish community.
Aaron Taylor
Brandeis ’09
Hot or Not?
I was a junior at Binghamton University when Fuel For Truth came up to my campus last year (“The War at Home,” February 2008). NOT what we expected of a Jewish group. They were cool, smart, and hot. We got to hang with them all weekend and they really made me and my friends care about something we never cared about before. Israel rocksss.
Sam Rosen
[Fuel For Truth is] a perfect illustration of how desperate the self-styled “Israel advocates” are becoming. Young people are increasingly pro-Palestinian because we’re too sophisticated to be fooled by simplistic propaganda. The pro-Palestine and peace groups put on substantive, sophisticated events that may have little flash, but are compelling and realistic. The “Israel advocacy” crowd either presents fools like Daniel Pipes or Alan Dershowitz, or else relies on slick propaganda that doesn’t fool anybody who’s got good judgment.
Neil Strauss
From a Talking Rabbit
Thank you for bringing the Jewish facets of Second Life to your readers’ attention (“Real Reporting in a Virtual World,” In Other News…, November/December 2007). Is it weird? Sometimes. Disembodied? Certainly. But the key word is community, and it is community, above all else, that raises Second Life beyond being a mere “game.”
For the record, I carefully considered my answers to the 2Life reporter’s questions, and I reviewed them after reading your article. My choice of avatar – also a considered decision – admittedly implies a certain playfulness, but that should not detract from the overall seriousness of my interview responses.
Similarly, the fact that an anti-Semitic act, such as scattering burning swastikas across a Jewish sim, occurs in a virtual world does not diminish its emotional impact on those who experience it.
If you need some quiet time, you are welcome to join me on my roof.
“Shmoo Snook”
No Rivalry To Speak Of
There is not much [sibling rivalry] to speak of (“Two Brothers, Two Sounds,” Music Review, February 2008). Avi and I are very much each other’s fans. We play music together very often, support each other at shows, and tell people about each others work, of which we are both very proud. There is certainly enough room in this town for the both of us.
I would not call Luminescent Orchestrii, or Avi’s album, Jewish music. Luminescent Orchestrii is influenced by Klezmer music, but we are much more influenced by Romanian Gypsy music, The Dead Kennedys and Serbian Brass Bands. The Luminescent Orchestrii is not a Jewish music ensemble. We play some Jewish songs, I sing a few in Yiddish, but that is it.
Benjy Fox-Rosen
