A Blog in Asheville, North Carolina has gained attention from the British News site The Guardian. The site might also be a newspaper over there, I’m not sure as I don’t live in England. The Guardian Story questions the reviewer from the Asheville Performing Arts Review, for anonymously criticizing the UNCA-Diana Wortham Theater colaboration “The Tempest Project”. Perhaps the review was a bit harsh; though I haven’t actually seen the play so it could be right on the money. That said it was no worse than most negative movie reviews and why theater thinks they are above legitimate criticism I will never know. I believe the aspect of complete freedom of speech frightens many older institutions. I’m sure at one point critics of theater were jovial old men that wrote for a daily, drank brandy, and looked forward to to donning their smoking jacket, have fido fetch their slippers and settle in by the fire with the longwinded stultifying prose of Melville before retiring to their chambers– alas this is no more. And yet even now there are only 250 members of the American Theater Critics Association. So why does the theater expect courtesies that apply to no other institutions. Not one person has rebuked slate.com for their review of this week’s theatrical release of “Speed Racer”.

“Shapes hurtle toward you, then recede abruptly, each bearing some fragment of narrative information that has now passed you by forever. Nausea and anxiety begin to wash over you in overlapping waves.” [Read Review]

Ok, that review was not anonymous but the reviewer in Asheville is an actor, he can’t afford to anger the establishment but that doesn’t mean his opinion should not be heard. And as an actor his opinion should count for something. Here is a sample of the transatlantic controversy.

It is possible for a brilliant and insightful director to face off against a great play and a great playwright, and, by opposing, find fresh nuance and unsuspected relevance in old and familiar words. This is not what happens in Theater UNCA’s The Tempest Project. Directors Laura Facciponti and Pamella O’Connor have, instead, devised a sort of bizarro-Tempest which, aside from being bad on its own account, violates the play at just about every point, apparently wilfully, blithe in its disregard for scholarship, reading skills, and even correct pronunciation. It was as if these two women had looked the Bard in the eye, without knowing precisely who he was, and snarled “I’ll show you how it really should be done.” [Continue Reading]

There is a reason our elections are by secret ballet, and reasons why some blogs are too. Do you think that the employees of those blogs about Wal-Mart are really going to be honest if they know the execs can read their posts? They would be out of a job. Same with this anonymous actor. To see The Guardian’s story visit their website.