"Annie Get Your Gun" Review

Bev's review is out in The Davis Enterprise (but so far, just in hard copy - she generally posts here, though). Let's see what she didn't like:

The mere fact that the writers of a musical create encore numbers - to be performed when the number itself gets lots of applause, and the audience obviously wants more - does not mean that said encore numbers should be performed routinely, as part of the show.

Well, that's a matter of opinion, of course. Long encores can be hard on the audience. But they are in the show, and to be faithful to the script, they remain.

Director/choreographer Ron Cisneros is doing the original 1946 version of the Irving Berlin classic, with book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields. The show was updated by Peter Stone in 1999 to be more politically correct, particularly in its depiction of Native Americans.

Actually, there is a notation at the front of our scripts indicating that we are following the 1966 revival script: "For this production Irving Berlin wrote one new number while minor book revisions by Herbert and Dorothy Fields included the elimination of two secondary characters, their songs and ensuing romance."

I don't know anything about the 1999 update. Still, what many perceive as the insufficient political correctness of the 1966 update, particularly the adoption scene, is itself a phenomenon of note.

Political correctness is a form of shorthand to guide polite behavior on controversial subjects. Like all shorthand, however, political correctness is not a perfect guide, and often lacks subtlety. My opinion is that political correctness should never guide the content of theater. Instead, political correctness is itself another object that theater can toy with, use or discard, emphasize or neglect, as seems useful.

First, as with anyone, it is imperative to be polite to Native Americans, yet people in general remain remarkably ignorant about Native Americans, and approach them from a variety of not-very-polite attitudes ranging from stereotypical naivete to outright hostility. These stereotypes were much harder in the last decade of the 19th Century, with the fresh memories of shed blood, when the events dramatized in the show occurred. Regarding the adoption scene, Bev writes:

In 2007, and especially on the heels of the recent Don Imus incident, this scene can be uncomfortable, despite the fact that it's designed to be humorous ... or perhaps because it is designed to be humorous.

Theater - good theater anyway - should make people somewhat uncomfortable, because that discomfort heightens awareness. If people laugh and cringe at the same time, that is for the best. The adoption scene underlines how much-improved our attitudes are to Native Americans today. Despite the gripes people have had over the years, political correctness actually has done a lot of good. The Don Imus analogy doesn't really apply here, however, because no Native Americans are being singled out for unmerited and thoughtless opprobrium, as was the case with Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team. A subtle point, maybe, but important.

Yet, for the most part, Bev liked the show. Yay!