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 t
was amiable chitchat, a piece of fluff for last Sunday's New
York Times. Just how do you get hold of tickets for The
Producers,
Broadway's hottest show, a musical about a musical devoted to Hitler?
The newspaper ran through the alternatives: sleazy scalpers, cunning
concierges, even a crafty charitable contribution or two, and then
fell back on that most effective of Manhattan ruses, "It's whom
you get to know." For, as the Times explained, every night
the "house" hangs on to tickets for distribution to a favored few.
Readers were told that Rocco Landesman, the show's lead producer,
has 18 to hand out. "If you're Bill Clinton, we've got tickets,"
he told the Times.
Such generosity is not extended to everyone. There will, Mr. Landesman
warned, be no such tickets for George W. Bush. Well, of course not,
Mr. Landesman, we understand. The man is a monster, a fanatic in
cowboy boots. Who would give tickets to Arsenic Boy? Not Rocco Landesman,
that is to be sure. He would rather extend his invitation to someone
else, someone, presumably, far more deserving. He would give, he
said, tickets to Fidel Castro.
Yes, that's right, Fidel Castro. Rocco Landesman would be glad to
play host to a tyrant.
It was a revealing moment, a joke, maybe (memo to Rocco: Jokes about
living dictators are a lot trickier than those about their dead
counterparts), but more likely a glimpse into the contemporary liberal
psyche. Characteristically, the New York Times chose not
to examine it. Maybe the paper's writers were embarrassed for their
interviewee. There is, after all, something more than a little nauseating
about the spectacle of some self-important showbiz hustler, a hawker
of grease paint and someone else's tunes, taking it upon himself
to "snub" the president of the United States by withholding tickets
for a night at the theater.
Perhaps, though, the awkwardness lay elsewhere. What do you say,
after all, to a man who, in the course of a light-hearted interview,
has, in effect, just blurted out his admiration for one of the nastier
rulers of the last century, and, by implication, compared him favorably
with the current incumbent of the White House? Well, what the Times
should have done is called him on it. If "the paper of record" was
doing its job, its journalist should have taken Mr. Landesman at
his word and asked him just what it was he admired so much about
Fidel.
One can only speculate. Was it, perhaps, the crushing of the Cuban
trade unions, and the arrest of leaders such as David Salvador of
the sugar workers? After long years of having to deal with the irritating
folks at Actors' Equity, was it the thought of trade unionist Mr.
Salvador spending twelve years in jail that Mr. Landesman found
so inspiring, so worthy of those tickets?
It could just be a matter of culture. The Broadway promoter doubtless
sees himself as an artistic individual, so maybe he was impressed
by the twenty-year imprisonment of the poet Jorge Valls? Clearly
Castro is a man who takes culture very seriously, so
unlike that barbarian Dubya. Armando Valladares, another poet, also
survived for more than two decades behind bars. Reduced to a wheelchair
by years of mistreatment, he was not spared the attention of his
jailers. The beatings continued with steel cable and rifle butt,
while, for variety, buckets of urine and excrement were thrown in
his face. Well, said the literary Mr. Castro, Valladares "was no
poet." Now that, as Rocco will appreciate, is criticism,
far more rigorous than anything that can be found in the pages of
Playbill. We should not be surprised. Under Castro, as we
are always told, literacy rates have increased exponentially: Cuba
is an island of learning.
Maybe it was the Cuban justice system that Rocco wanted to honor,
so much more effective than anything to be found in George W's Texas,
the torture in the Villa Marista, perhaps, or the interrogation
rooms in Pinar Del Rio. But why single out these centers for special
praise? Over the years, Castro has run so many prisons, each of
them distinguished in their own particular way, and not just because
of the quality of their inmates, those impudent critics (yes, Rocco,
don't you hate that word) of the Caribbean gulag. There is
La Cabana of the "rat holes," for example, or Boniato with its typhus
and rapes, and let us not pass over those little cages at Tres Macios
del Oriente, always so handy for keeping order.
Some people (there's always somebody) did not appreciate everything
that was being done for them. After enjoying ten years of Castro's
compulsory hospitality and the benefits of that famed Cuban healthcare
(both his legs had had to be amputated as a result of the beatings
he had endured), an ungrateful former student leader by the name
of Pedro Luis Boitel went on hunger strike. He died, which was just
as well. Castro had already said that Boitel had to be "liquidated"
so that he would not "f*** up any more." Unfortunately, Rocco Landesman
has not yet given us his views on whether such a fate was deserved.
We can only guess.
Maybe there was something else. Mr. Landesman is, we need to remember,
a man currently making money, albeit indirectly, out of the Third
Reich. Did Castro's camps strike a chord, El Manbu, perhaps, or
was it the forced labor on the Isle of Pines that caught his attention?
In that context, how interesting to note that, just like the Fuhrer,
Castro has had no time for those awkward gays, the people he once
so charmingly described as "limp-wristed, shameless creatures."
Surely Mr. Landesman would not have spoken out on Castro without
taking the trouble to do some research beforehand, so we can only
assume that he knows that the Cuban caudillo put a good number
of such "social deviants" behind barbed wire, something that Rocco
may wish to reflect upon before he invites Castro to the next Landesman
production of Angels in America.
Responsible government must also focus on the vulnerable. In particular,
Mr. Landesman, a good liberal, is bound to be worried about "The
Children." When it comes to Cuba, he can, again, find satisfaction.
Castro cares too. Indeed, Il Lider Maximo was, in the past,
reportedly kind enough to organize an internment camp especially
for tots under ten. Unlike that hypocrite Bush, Fidel is a man who
really will leave no child behind. Just ask Elian.
Finally, and maybe this is the key, as a Broadway professional,
Mr. Landesman must always be interested in the grosses, and if there's
one thing that is big about Castro, it is the numbers. Over the
years, they have, it is estimated, been spectacular, particularly
given the size of his small home market. Two million exiles! One
hundred thousand jailed! Fifteen thousand executions! And what a
run it has been. With no pesky free elections to spoil the show,
Castro's performance has been playing for more than forty years.
That's longer than Cats.
Ah yes, that must be it. No wonder Rocco is so impressed.
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