![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
an open letter to Paul Gross
Jun. 5th, 2007 09:54 amDear Mr. Gross:
Hiya, Paulie, what's up.
Listen, I'm really enjoying Slings & Arrows. I was interested but the tiniest bit skeptical when I first heard of it, because to be perfectly frank I thought you were in on the writing and/or directing, and while you're gifted at both (but listen, not at writing music; keep singing, if you must, but please stop inflicting your compositions on us until after they've improved), I have pretty reliable Issues with people directing themselves. Granted, it's worse when they do it on stage, but even in film and television, when the director is his own star -- even when it goes well, one feels it could have gone better with a little more compartmentalization. I realize that this means Dead Again, for example, would either have not starred or not been directed by Kenneth Branagh, which would have made it a whole different film; but then the same could be true of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. Rough with the smooth, you know?
But I digress. Really enjoying S&A, as I said. But listen, between Constable Fraser and Hamlet (a production for which I don't blame you, by the way) and Chris Cutter and Geoffrey Tennant, when was the last time you played a character who wasn't in some way off his nut? I don't recall Cutter speaking to ghosts, but it was a pretty close thing, and even without him you're three for four in the spectral-visions department. Doesn't this worry you at all?
Side note to Martha Burns: doesn't this worry you at all?
best regards
Fox.
Hiya, Paulie, what's up.
Listen, I'm really enjoying Slings & Arrows. I was interested but the tiniest bit skeptical when I first heard of it, because to be perfectly frank I thought you were in on the writing and/or directing, and while you're gifted at both (but listen, not at writing music; keep singing, if you must, but please stop inflicting your compositions on us until after they've improved), I have pretty reliable Issues with people directing themselves. Granted, it's worse when they do it on stage, but even in film and television, when the director is his own star -- even when it goes well, one feels it could have gone better with a little more compartmentalization. I realize that this means Dead Again, for example, would either have not starred or not been directed by Kenneth Branagh, which would have made it a whole different film; but then the same could be true of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. Rough with the smooth, you know?
But I digress. Really enjoying S&A, as I said. But listen, between Constable Fraser and Hamlet (a production for which I don't blame you, by the way) and Chris Cutter and Geoffrey Tennant, when was the last time you played a character who wasn't in some way off his nut? I don't recall Cutter speaking to ghosts, but it was a pretty close thing, and even without him you're three for four in the spectral-visions department. Doesn't this worry you at all?
Side note to Martha Burns: doesn't this worry you at all?
best regards
Fox.
