It's always tricky when a critic takes on - VERY aggressively - the role of a director or script consultant.
In this case, Mr. Green wishes out loud that Ms. Corman had written and performed a different play. And yes, I *get* that he finds the play here somewhat unsatisfying in "explaining" even Maddie's actions, decisions, etc.
But it very much reminds me of debates like the one at WNYC. "What ACTUALLY happened?" often said shrill-ly, seeming to bray, "We're entitled to know THAT much, aren't we?" ... Um, actually NO. Because one can't - as I'm sure Mr. Green would - insist that privacy is something to be guarded ... except if... ?? one is onstage?
The FORM here - more than a monologue - an examination of how one's life fell apart - yes, in many ways, more compelling and spelled out than how this couple managed to knit things back together - really precludes its providing some of the information Mr. Green WISHES were there.
Common sense tells me that the alternative is some kind of narrative very much reliant on therapy sessions. I doubt that that would work AT ALL on the stage. It certainly isn't REALLY what the author has in mind.
Having said that, the insertion of "something happened to my husband when he was young" has - rightly or wrongly - the feel of a critical "note" the author got at some point. "YES, the audience is pulling for you, Maddie, but it's awfully darn hard when you start with the headlines and the unrebutted facts of the charges your husband faced."
Thankfully, I only paid $34 dollars on TDF to see this deeply flawed, privileged version of "deep pain." Yes , pain is pain, regardless of social class; still, this production was way too slick and completing lacking in insight and self-awareness. I kept waiting for the protagonist to cop to her privilege and acknowledge the tremendous support (and power of money) that produced her "courage." I am certain that she and her family have suffered tremendously and I wish her no more pain. Still, if you are working in the service of others -- might you not consider the rest of the truly brave among us? Many of us are accidentally brave (it's called life) and we don't don designer clothes (and accessories) and proclaim our own special brand of victimized courage. In defense of the the NYT's, at least this review removes the pink glasses in the end.
5
Whatever feelings I may have about the sentence, the privilege and the playwright's choices, I lay them aside for this:
Someone I loved
committed a crime
that could not be talked about.
It was not the crime
but the isolation
that was almost the end of me.
The only thing
that helped
was hearing someone else’s
unmentionable story.
4
@Piedmont Poet
Thank you for the beautiful poem. You so clearly expressed what I've been trying to put into words.
I think people are missing the point of what she's trying to do because it's hard to get past the horror of the crime. No one is saying what her husband did was okay. No one is saying that the exploited children don't matter. No one is saying it isn't all horrible.
But this involves human beings and human beings are imperfect. The poor, exploited children aren't the only collateral human damage. The friends and families of the people like her husband are hurt, ostracized, and shamed. Because they are not allowed to talk about it, the isolation and feeling that they are the only one going through this can take a toll. Sharing stories can help heal others.
You can't pass judgement on a story you don't know. And everyone deserves a chance at earning redemption.
1
Her husband had videos of six year olds being sexualized. He's vile and she's boring and willfully blind. Both of them should exit the public eye.
11
This isn't brave. It's stupid. Her play should not have been produced. Brave would have been leaving him after he made it clear he was into six year olds.
10
Children were raped for her husband's sexual pleasure. Why is it seen as brave for her to refuse to condemn him or leave him?
9
I was watching her on The View. She admits that her husband was not only watching child porn. He was also distributing it. What kind of woman stays with someone like that?
8
It makes me so sad that this play and Corman’s story have gotten such star treatment in the NYT. We have fallen so low as a country.
Corman is brave? She is white and privileged and her husband bought, watched, downloaded and sold pictures of unknowing unwilling, trafficked, innocent children. Where are those kids now? I am sure they are ruined-emotionally-mentally-physically-tortured for life-maybe dead already. Aren’t they the brave ones?
Corman and Alexander are now making money off of these children for their children’s futures. Isn’t that ironic? Corman goes on The View to peddle tickets and wants us to grieve for her and all that she has been through? If she was a woman without means-she would be visiting Jace in prison for a decade at least. Perhaps she wouldn’t have stayed with him then?
This is the world we live in now. Trump is president and lying is the new normal. Daryl Roth produces this play and her power allows her to market and perpetuate this “interesting” story. The NYT spotlights Corman in a major article with great placement(wonder how that happens) and reviews this play without mentioning the victims ANYWHERE, Corman gets a chunky segment on The View for an off broadway play and actually considers herself BRAVE. Alexander doesn’t get any jail time and is now producing a documentary about his story that he didn’t go to jail for, but anyone else would have. Where are the children in all of this? FORGOTTEN. This is the new normal. So sad.
30
@Karen I so agree with you. Corman has had not one but two NYT's articles in what a month? She must be connected. Very sad.
These children are throw aways.
8
@Lisa, to be fair to the way journalism works all around the country - It's normal to have a news or feature article on every major opening, and then the normal review, which tends not to be influenced by the human interest nature of the feature story. Certainly, that this show exists at all in a commercial production is newsworthy. (Got to wonder of the passion of reader reaction will pop up; that's been happening when the paper finds that newsworthy.)
The new musical BMC that overnight review did not care for still had two powerful features, one an excellent news report on the show's songwriter and the unusual and historically newsworthy social media method of the show getting ti Broadway, and the other a beautiful aching piece on the late writer of the BMC novel and his widow. I suspect based on what we've seen in the paper that if one of the other critics after seeing it has a different opinion, the open nature of cyber-space may allow that opinion to be voiced too. (This has happened with The Cher Show, for example.)
I do wonder how all around the country, the same journalist writes the news/feature story and then is able ti write a negative review when needed about an artist he or she has gotten to know well enough to write the interview. I've seen in the Newark Star Ledger, for example, a warm interview, then a week later, as a critic having to pan that performance. It can't be easy (I couldn't do it), but in many regional papers, that's the job.
@Freddie- This is not a MAJOR opening. It is an Off-Broadway show with a virtually unknown actress. The producer Roth is the one with the purse strings and the power. The coverage was bought and leveraged. This play wouldn’t have made it anywhere without connections and privilege. Plain and simple.
11
There is something seriously wrong with this woman. Her play is all about HER family's "healing"? What about all the children her husband has been complicit in sexually abusing, assaulting, and exploiting?
Why isn't he in prison?
But oh, the hardships they suffer - having to forego coaching children's soccer and inviting kids in for Halloween!
Anyone this tone-deaf doesn't have sufficient insight, self-awareness, or compassion for the child victims of her husband's "hobby" to write anything worthwhile or truly honest on this subject.
And how about protecting her children instead of exploiting their pain for this display of self-indulgence and self-congratulations?
I don't understand how she can allow a pedophile to live under the same roof with her children - and I don't understand why the courts and child welfare agencies allow it.
23
This isn't a play - it's an episode of a 1980s daytime talk show - "I discovered my husband is a pedophile and child porn addict, but I stayed married to him and our children still live with us."
Hope the proceeds from this play will be donated to organizations fighting sex trafficking and child porn and helping exploited children - the actual victims in this sordid story. And hope she sets aside some money for therapy for her kids.
16
"Though he was never accused of touching any child inappropriately, he must also register as a sex offender." I'm confused as to why this is notable. It seems to be making a distinction which is not defensible, either legally or morally. The trade in images of children being sexually abuse is a sexual offense. Period. So yes, sexual offenders are registered as sexual offenders.
17
@DK
Yes, and given the empirical time lag in most cases between events and victims' summoning the courage to speak of such, I wondered when I read the sentence whether the lack of accusations reflected anything other than a child's confusion and fear. A more accurate wording might be "Though no children have yet come forward with claims that he touched them, ..,"
But pornography itself is certainly not victimless.
7
I am a criminal defense attorney — my jaw dropped to learn that he did no prison time. Sentences of 10, 20, 30, 40 years are the norm — and right, I’m talking about for child porn, not child sex abuse. I’m not saying such sentences are appropriate—just that they are draconian, and for him to have received a probation-only sentence makes this, for me, a could-have-been story about the criminal justice system. Now that would be an interesting story to develop, NYTimes.
31
>matron
Can we please dispense with terms like this? The actress played a married woman, in middle years. Matron is an unflattering stereotype denoting "no longer young and hot." Along with "actress," these are dated terms that demean women who are otherwise complex characters, as are married men.
23
@Elena, thank you! I also hate that demeaning word - another term that devalues and dismisses women as human beings.
4
@Elena
In a review of a play about child pornography, we are glad that you were able to distill the real outrage. Way to go.
6
If she didn’t know he was watching child pornography how does she KNOW he’s never touched a child? Because he says so? Plus even if he never touched a child, somebody was, and by purchasing and watching their products he was complicit in the abuse. He shouldn’t be around children, even his own, and the fact that people know what he did is small penance for someone who would enjoy watching a child being assaulted. He should have gone to prison.
51
Guantanamo should be turned into a holding cell for people like her husband. And she needs to wipe that silly, self-satisfied look off her face. There are states where if the victims are identified, they can receive generous restitution from the well-heeled predators who "only watched." How I wish Corman and Alexander could be forced to relinquish their assets to the victims - although I am sure they put it all into a trust immediately to fund their white-bread lifestyle. Oh, the tragedy of having to give up coaching soccer!
65
Gross and disgusting, but if people want to pay to see what most would like to forget exists, so be it. Just another sign.
11
Gosh, the reactions to this play as demonstrated by allegedly sophisticated NY Times readers strikes me as probably very similar to reactions to Lolita when it was first published.
Sorry, but even if the artistic quality of this play pales in comparison to Nabokov's masterpiece, the reaction that one shouldn't even contemplate a play with this subject matter should appall us all. More importantly, if we simply shame discussions of this topic into silence, how are we ever going to effectively address the issues raised?
30
This issue here is not about a play about child pornography - a fictional depiction (like Lolita) wouldn't get the same reaction as a non-fictional drama.
18
@J. Cornelio
It’s not that it is a topic that can’t be discussed, but whether this particular production is well done, constructive, and fair to the parties involved such as their children, any identifiable victims, etc.
Hinting that criticism of it is probably just censorship by prudes is itself trying to shut down a discussion.
26
@J. Cornelio. Gosh
1
This story made my skin crawl. How any woman could stay with a pedophile especially with children in the home is beyond my comprehension. Jace Alexander, due to white privilege, money and a famous mother (actress Jane Alexander) clearly were factors that led to his receiving no jail time. Not interested at all in this show and can't imagine why anyone would be.
60
@Bellagiorno,when you say "Jace Alexander, due to white privilege, money and a famous mother (actress Jane Alexander) clearly were factors that led to his receiving no jail time," doesn't it lead directly to the idea that the negative things related to the same person also are in large part due to DNA and upbringing and experience as well?
Parents and wealth come with the good and the bad. Just an example: A lot of writers would so love to have the abilities of Sondheim (talent which have to have started from the DNA of who Sondheim's mother and father were), but with that talent came that very same mother who was part of that talent feeling she wished she'd never given birth. Sondheim parlayed that into greatness. So many of us would just have withered early rather than make something extraordinary of that.
2
@Bellagiorno
Well, today you can add black-gay privilege to the list of factors that'll set one free. Thanks, Jussie.
7
All of these negative comments written by people who I would guess have never even seen the play. I have not seen it yet either.
Yes, child pornography is terrible. Horrid. Awful.
But are we as a society getting any closer to addressing it by finger-pointing, grandstanding, lecturing and publicly shaming all involved back into the shadows? I quite frankly am curious about what Ms. Corman has to say on the subject, as she has lived through it in the unsympathetic position of being married to an actual consumer. I doubt anyone is minimizing the real pain of the children involved. And who is to say that she is just re-traumatizing her family? And I think we can be sure that no one is getting even close to rich on this unpopular venture.
And isn't this exactly what the theater is suppose to do? Don't we often go to the theater to confront our worst fears as a society and mentally and emotionally try work through them?
Enough with the knee-jerk moralizing. I will be buying a ticket.
53
@Gamp
Thank you. I never saw this play as about her husband but how any one of us would go on with life when faced with a horrible betrayal. I remember when one of my teacher's husband (a minister)was front page news for being caught in the park with a man. In a small town in the 70s this was seen as absolutely horrific. How did she come back to school, what did she tell her children. I don't care about the criminal, I care about the survivors, all of them.
21
@Gamp The internet is ripe with knee-jerk moralizing, but that's not the case here. Sexual exploitation of children is unforgivable. It can't be "worked through" with Oprah-esque self-help bromides or a Very Special One-Woman Show, with tickets at $75 a pop.
Helping them profit from his crime by attending this show is grotesque.
Corman and her husband need to thank their lucky stars for their privilege, retreat to the shadows and call it a day.
31
@Gamp Omg. Sympathy for pedolphiles. Ew. This is not what theater is supposed to do.
2
How could you not know their was something wrong with your husband for all those years. And now you are trying to sensationalize it. It’s terrible you had to experience this but work through it with the help of friends and therapy. Not necessary to do this for your children’s sake. It is a very sad situation for the entire family except for husband. If he had a problem like this don’t use your home family computer.
9
@Suzanne How could you not know "there" was something wrong with your husband all those years "?"
I also like that your response to him having a problem is to use an outside computer. Would that have made it better for his family?
5
@Suzanne you have no idea what this is possibly like. I had no idea my husband was doing this. No idea. Nobody has any idea what they would do in this situation and God I hope you never find out. The anguish , they betrayal, the hurt for those precious children in the internet, the unthinkable that my husband was watching. You have no idea the pain.
2
Ms. Corman says her children were screaming when they called her to say the police were arresting their father on child.
Now she writes a one-woman play. . What about her children? Reliving the experience. Yes. Being exploited for her play. Does she care?
I feel sorry for these kids. They were traumatized. And now their mother re traumatizes them....for what? Money. Self-indulgence. Self=pity.
There's something a ugly about this that your critic ignored..
65
@steve: Typically, the original trauma engendered on her children was because police methods are insane. I presume they broke into the house (at 5am no less) rather than simply showing up during the daytime and quietly asked him to accompany them to the station with his computer. Police care nothing for the trauma they visit on the population every day, and nobody does anything about it. I was a "found-in" of a police raid on a gay sauna in Toronto in 1981. Rather than accept the keys offered by the owner to open private room doors, they proceeded to break the doors down with axes. Can you imagine being one of the people inside when that happened? They also stole people's jewelery and money. And the following day went to people's homes and places of business announcing to all and sundry that their husbands and co-workers were picked up in the raid. More recently they shoot at people on the streets, even when unnecessary, rather than caring about the possibility of ricochets damaging innocent people. In fact, we don't care a fig about the "trauma" felt by anyone - because the police are given carte blanche to destroy everyone's lives.
2
I read an interview with Ms. Corman recently and felt as irritated by her self-absorbed "white privilege" and elitism as I do now, reading this review. She's not doing this to be "of service" to anyone but herself and to desperately draw attention to her own very mediocre, limp career. I happen to hate one-person memoirist shows but this sounds even more intolerable. Jace Alexander is a very sick man, a pedophile, and there's clearly something very very wrong with Corman for staying with him and not feeling dirty. And uh-the character of "Angel", the "very famous" person? I'm sure it's based on her mother in law, Jane Alexander. Ugh. Shame producers overlooked far better writers/actors in favor of nepotism.
44
@Patou - But the white privilege is also clear in the very light sentence he was given. No prison time? Really? This is not normal in such cases and lays bare the inequities of the system.
31
@Patou she sure is doing a huge service for those of us who are in her very position. What my husband has done is unforgivable the pain he has has caused to many is unbearable. What this actress has done is give us wives and families a voice to our pain. What we have to do to pick up the pieces of our very broken lives which I might add had no idea was broken to begin with. I haven’t seen the play but I want to. All these comments of all you people behind your keyboards make me cringe. The lack of compassion for the families that go through this. The thought we don’t think about those precious children that have been victimized THATS ALL WE THINK ABOUT!!! There are many victims n these cases the children first then the families of the offender. The families didn’t do anything wrong it’s jot our faults. So we are going to be criticize as we pick up our pieces whether we stsybwith our very sick husbands or not.
2
@Betrayed
Nope.
Once you cut all ties with your 'husband' and prevent him from seeing your children until they are adults, you get all the sympathy you require.
3
Are there any pedophiles who have been successfully cured? How does one sleep at night in a home with children and a known sex offender?
31
@Nana
Yes. There is a guaranteed 100% success rate of curing these blights upon humanity and it is called death.
1
@Nana
makes my skin crawl.
1
@Nana, exactly. And how do you put yourself in her shoes? Imagine your husband, the man you've known and shared your life with for decades doing this? I'm going to the show because I want to better understand. I'll decide then whether this is being transparent or applying spin.
But I'd rather we discuss and explore before we judge.
1
Terminology may be key. Is this a true addiction, like a drug addiction, or is it a proclivity that's hard wired in the brain, like sexual orientation? Isn't it, in fact, a socially, legally, and morally unacceptable form of sexual orientation? If so, attempts to "cure the addiction" may be tantamount to "conversion therapy" and equally useless.
5
@Greater Metropolitan Area, the addiction part of the equation is the addiction to pornography - increasingly recognized as a true addiction, with its continual feedback cycle of stimulation, pleasure - and seeking more and more of the substance or activity.
Rehab doesn't cure this addiction anymore than it can cure a person of being an alcoholic or a drug addict. The addiction is there, but the person learns how to manage it and live with it.
The other part of the equation - the sexual interest in children - is the part that's hard-wired and not treatable by rehab or therapy.
Which means: her husband is a pedophile - and she allows him to continue living with their children.
2
I do not understand the purpose of this production, other than some sort of narcissistic catharsis. It accomplishes nothing for anyone other than Ms. Corman and maybe they play's producers. Though she's probably not making a lot of money in an Off-Broadway production, Ms. Corman is prolonging (and monetizing) not only her own tragedy, but that of the victims, her husband, and her own children.
61
@Curmudgeonly
Totally agree. The Times already gave her plenty of free publicity with the previous article. I hope her children can forgive her for inflicting more trauma upon the already existing trauma.
38
I wonder if the author (or the wife) has actually looked into the success rates of the "deluxe Arizona rehab" that this woman's husband went to? I have. Success is virtually nil.
I researched this facility when someone I had considered a close friend, a medical doctor I knew from church, was found to have gone there. I don't know if he went voluntarily or involuntarily. I knew nothing of his past, just rumors that I rejected as outlandish, right up until he was arrested. He apparently had tried for years to overcome his urges. But this is one of the most intractable disorders a human being can have. If people who have endured sexual abuse as children are not gotten ahold of very early on and put into a targeted setting that offers rigorous counseling (unlikely given the secrecy of these encounters), the situation perpetuates itself by turning the child victim into an adult perpetrator. And that's a bit too late.
This man was "poisoned by pornography"? Isn't saying such a confusion of chicken and egg?
23
@Janice
They sent a lot of priests to places like that, and look how that turned out.
Not saying it’s impossible for someone with these problems to get to the point where they will not harm anyone again, but it’s a bit much to assume that it will make everything OK.
9
@Janice
OK so all of us who have endured childhood sexual abuse are primed to become abusers? Please...
21
@Di
Di, how did you manage to read my comment and conclude that I was disagreeing with you? I was not saying that there is any "treatment plan" that I know of that works. I only know that the treatments now available clearly DON'T work. People get out and do the same thing again.
1
Sorry. This play sounds like the worst example of oversharing I've ever read about.
Just Googled "sentenced for child pornography". There are many examples of people doing 15, 20 years in a state pen for child porn. With hardened, violent criminals.
"...all the while forced to forgo ordinary pleasures like coaching youth soccer and inviting children to trick-or-treat at their house"
sounds like one of the most glaring examples of white privilege and rich-people privilege I can think of.
"Never accused of touching a child inappropriately". Indeed.
80
@Jack from Saint Loo, I also doubt that he "only" viewed porn and never behaved inappropriately toward a child.
It is stunning that he wasn't tried and sentenced to prison. Even more shocking that he's allowed to live with their children!
If this were a low-income family of color, you can bet that he'd be in prison - and their kids in foster care.
10
What about the young children that were exploited by her husband?
This is a tone deaf self indulgent show to not recognize the harm he did to the children he exploited and focusing on herself and her children.
Where is her empathy for the victims?
Some interviewer has to ask her how she would feel if it was her 11 year old exploited and used in the pornography and then the wife of the sex offender makes a show about how brave she was from the sex offenders family point of view .
90
Is Ms. Corman donating any proceeds of this production to RAINN or similar groups? Or has she simply erased these children in the name of self-healing?
65
@catherine
There are unlikely to be any proceeds. That’s not how most theatre works. Given Ms. Corman’s resources, this is probably a self-produced affair, supported by friends and family, and will claim a loss at tax time.
The center of for-profit theatre is Broadway, and successful shows there take months or even years to recoup.
2
Jace Alexander could afford to go to a good rehab facility because he's been a longstanding member of the DGA and they have great insurance...which has helped many of it's members with various addictions.
5
Since they are still married the sex offender is directly profiting from this show.
53
@SamanthaM.
Samantha, why don't you look at the success rate of treatment programs for this "addiction"? Do that, and then answer this: Do you still feel optimistic?
18
I have to say I struggled a great deal with this review of a play that purports to be about family healing, while simultaneously ignoring one of the main characters unspeakable crimes. The review notes the play never refers to the husband, in this case a man convicted of consuming child pornography and who is now a registered sex offender. I am sure Ms. Corman the playwright and wife in this case understands enough to know that if the play revolved around her husband's horrific crimes, the audience would be repulsed. The review includes a line designed to make us feel a bit "better" about the husband's act "he was never accused of touching a child inappropriately." Child pornography is not a victimless crime and it is not made any better because he didn't "touch" the victims. Those children in the photos and video did not willing engage in these acts. Mr. Alexander contributed to their harm every single time he pressed play on a video. So, the audience, then, is asked to focus on the wealthy suburban family and how they "came together" after the husband's arrest and the sadness of missing out on simple suburban pleasures. The play completely ignores the true victims of Mr. Alexander's crimes.
106
@Anne Marie
Sex offense, the new cancer (or disease of the week)...the traumatic experience that in the theater magically makes you a better and more meaningful person!
8