First as to the douchebag part - he admits he is one on his very own blog, in so many words:
Now, what does this have to do with GIRLS IN TROUBLE, my play currently in rehearsal at The Flea which consumes about 23 1/2 of my 24-hour day? Just this: we have a vegan in the cast, and I am trying to persuade her of the error of her ways. I've instructed her to stand upside down and then told her she could only have meat and dairy products for a week with the occasional snack of fish just to show her the borderline fascistic rigors of the flip side. She's thinking about it. I didn't have the spirit to bring her the slow-roasted pork, fearing charges of unfair competition: surely she would buckle at the knees and succmb, because there is no denying the pork shoulder. Besides, we need her in the first and third acts, not as a giddy, overfed pig convert too pleasured to make her entrance.First I presume that as a good conservative he would never try to convert someone who refused to eat pig for religious reasons. Because there is political correctness for conservatives too - it just isn't called that.
Putting aside the hyperbole about standing in the corner, I don't doubt that he is trying to persuade her of the errors of being a vegan, since, according to several reviews of the play he makes it clear that he holds vegans in contempt.
And she told him she's thinking about it. Well what the fuck else would she say? She's one of the very very few actors in this town who has a paying gig of some prestige. And as the playwright of the production she's doing, as well as a grand old man of the arts and a former NYTimes writer from back in the days when that actually meant something, Reynolds pretty much has total power over her career. If he decided to have her removed from the play he could do it - the Dramatists Guild is very clear about the right of playwrights to influence casting decisions. So unless she's a moron zombie, I'm sure what she'd prefer to say was "get the fuck out of my face you disgusting right-wing asshole" but the only thing she COULD say was that she'd think about it.
Now, as to the idiot part. Being a conservative is pretty much a license to be a hypocrite on the basis that conservatives believe that it's proper and right for there to be different sets of rules applied to different sets of people. This is why so many Catholic women end up getting abortions - they tell themselves that unlike those sluts who go around having abortions, if not for fun, than just because they are generally careless and irresponsible, they, the Catholic women, need an abortion due to their own special circumstances.
But even so - what a fucking idiot. Here's what he tells Time Out New York about the work of that other right-wing asshole David Mamet:
But I've found that about a couple of his plays - they waffle at the end, and don't prove a dramatic point.
Here's what he tells Time Out New York in a different article:
Knee - jerk conservatives, however, may not find themselves thrilled with Girls in Trouble either - especially in the play's shocking final section. "Jonathan really, in a spirited way, addresses both sides of the issue and comes to his own conclusion about it," says Simpson. "Is it right? Is it left? I don't think anyone is going to find a great deal of comfort with it on either side of the fence." Reynolds feels the same way. "I'm trying to take these issues to their logical extreme," he says. "At the end of the play, I bet you won't be able to tell which side of the issue I'm actually on."A great big fat waffle with waffle-flavored syrup is what that is. And certainly critics have found there's no dramatic point being proven. As Jason Zinoman, who bends over backwards to give this play a chance, says:
The gruesome conclusion, which takes the discussion about control of one's body to a literal extreme, will polarize. Part of me thinks it's a cop-out, a pox-on-both-your-houses twist that places the value of shock over that of argument.So it MIGHT BE a pox-on-both-your-houses situation. Or maybe not. In other words - it proves no dramatic point.
Douchebag. Idiot. Case closed.
Of course Reynolds and the Flea's Jim Simpson are in a can't-lose situation here. If the play is a hit and they make money, what's not to like. If the play is not a hit, it's because of the tyranny of the left-wing theatre-goers, especially those women over 40 - as Reynolds takes pains to call out. And even though the play is obnoxious, one-sided and over-the-top, it's considered "brave" and "controversial" because it is anti-abortion.
Speaking of which - can ANYBODY tell me which play, exactly, is it that this play is supposed to be balancing out? If there are any plays which present some kind of unambiguous joy over abortions, I've yet to hear about it. Every dramatic representation of the abortion issue I've EVER heard of has been about the moral ambiguity. And nobody felt the need to throw in a random attack on people who eat meat either, just for the douchebaggy hell of it.
And if Simpson and Reynolds ever find out I've written this, they will be ECSTATIC. Someone actually cares enough about this play to attack it and Reynolds - OOH CONTROVERSY!!! Get out your copy of the First Amendment right now so you can start waving it any minute. Because that's how these men prove what big fucking heroes they are. By facing down Big Sister, the way that brave John fights the Group in OLEANNA.
Yes, it's time for wealthy old white men to band together and fight the oppression of women and their dangerous beliefs in the right to female self-determination. They only have Fox News, most religions, most of the money and a million years of human cultural tradition on their side. Poor pitiful wealthy old white men!
It's funny though, that the one "PC" subject that is selected as the brave conservative piece is anti-abortion. Not anti-gay, or anti-Jew. All these men running theater groups and men writing theater reviews and men interviewing "brave" conservatives seem to agree - the proper subject of anti-PC attack is female self-determination. But I'm sure in the interest of bravery and completeness we'll be seeing a pro-Nazi play or a gays-are-evil play ANY DAY NOW.
And finally, the reason that this play is crap and Reynolds can't make a reasonable anti-abortion argument is because there ARE no anti-abortion arguments that are reasonable - certainly none that assume that women are human beings. I spent years doing clinic defense with video camera in hand, and the standard nuanced approach of the anti-abortion side is demonstrated in this video clip:
THAT'S the people who are the base of the anti-abortion movement.