Sunday, April 1, 2007

"Radio Golf": First impressions

Caught up with "Radio Golf" at McCarter yesterday afternoon (I love Princeton in the spring, how about you?) and I'm still letting it sink in before I write the review. For the first time, via the Jersey Stages Early Warning System, I'll share some of the knee-jerk reactions that a reviewer sometime has before forming his published opinion.
In shorthand, "Radio Golf" was absorbing, disturbing, funny, well-acted and well-staged and very entertaining. I'm left with a few quibbles, which leave me with the uncomfortable responsibility of criticising a drama god such as August Wilson, but comforted that they are minor. I'm also mindful that Wilson was still tweaking the show at the time of his death, and probably would have laughed at the critics who loved the parts he hated, and shook his head at the parts he liked but we didn't get.
But I'll tell you one thing right now: I bet Tiger Woods isn't happy that Wilson turnd him into the literal poster boy for black Americans who sold out to the racist white establishment. Never mind that Woods is of mixed-race heritage, and can't control the fact that too many people look at him, and others, and see only black or white. But for Woods, this is like a Catholic getting sucker-punched by the bishop. Wilson is exploiting Woods' overachievment and culture-crossing fame to make a dramatic point. I can only hope Wilson was too modest to think that anything he wrote would matter enough to hurt such a rich and powerful celerity, but why attack a positive role model when there's so many Big Shots out that are begging to be taken down?
Can you tell I'm a golfer? So forgive me if I sound a little, ahem, teed off. Oh, well, it's Palm Sunday, so the Masters is just arond Amen Corner.

Anybody else have something to say about "Radio Golf"? This would be the time and place.

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