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BATTLING BRANTLEY
New York Post
By MICHAEL RIEDEL
January 21, 2000
THE pooh-bahs who run one of Broadway's largest theater-owning chains have fired off missives to The New York Times complaining about the paper's chief drama critic, Ben Brantley.
Rocco Landesman, the head of Jujamcyn Theaters, and his underling Jack Viertel are steaming over Brantley's negative review of one of their shows, the dance revue "Swing!"
The Post was unable to obtain copies of the letters, but their contents are being widely discussed and dissected in theater circles.
Viertel's letter reportedly takes issue with the way the critic used his distaste for the redeveloped Times Square as a stick with which to beat "Swing!"
In his review, Brantley wrote: "Oh, dear. In the new, improved and unapologetically square Times Square area, it is getting ever harder to distinguish between the tourist-luring themed restaurants and the tourist-luring themed shows.
"'Swing!' is by no means the worst of the lot ... But when you start remembering the cats of ‘Cats' as a group of revolutionary hipsters, it may be time to retreat from the revue circuit."
Viertel says this was unfair, arguing that Brantley should have dealt solely with the merits of the show and not wrapped it up in a rant about Times Square.
In an interview with The Post this week, Brantley shot back: "Oh, well, too bad. We're supposed to provide context. That's what we're hired for."
Landesman's letter is said to echo the Broadway community's general bellyaching that Brantley turns his nose up at the commercial theater and has a downtown sensibility that's out of sync with mainstream Broadway theatergoers.
"'Kiss Me, Kate -- that's really bohemian. And ‘Contact,' that's way out there," responded Brantley, citing two mainstream musicals that he loved.
"I am not looking for serious, intellectual theater all the time. I like shows that work on their own terms."
Few theater people think Jujamcyn's letter-writing campaign will do Brantley any harm. The Times, after all, isn't likely to knuckle under to complaints from producers about its critics.
"If Rocco's goal was to secure Ben's job for another couple of years, he just succeeded," joked one theater person.
"Don't these guys have anything better to do than write letters about critics?" wondered another. "Critics are a fact of life in the theater."
Brantley, meanwhile, seems to be enjoying the controversy.
"I think it's an indication that I'm doing my job," he said with the amused of air of a man who sits securely on the throne. "I wonder why it took so long to happen."
Landesman did not return a call seeking comment. Viertel was traveling and could not be reached.
