LETTER: Marat Sick

For some obscure reason, the editors of The Daily Pennsylvanian have chosen to print three articles on the current production of Marat/Sade. Meanwhile, many other groups have been unfortunately ignored. Perhaps if there had been some newsworthy items in any of these lengthy articles generously complemented by large photographs, then I would not be complaining now. The fact that two groups -- Penn Players and Intuitons -- decided to introduce this unique and challenging play to the Penn community is commendable. However, these verbose pieces merely repeated the same thing over and over again. The gist of these three articles was that there is a production and people are rehearsing. This would be astounding news if this show were not one of twelve being produced by student groups this semester. This does not include performing groups such as Penn Six, Without a Net, Counterparts and the like. Despite the "objectivity" ascribed to newspapers, one perceives some biases of favoritism here. While the DP has been pushing Marat/Sade, many interesting productions have been completely neglected, such as The Bacchae, which is part of the College's year-long Bacchae project, produced by the Theater Arts department and completely free to students; Thespis, a rarely-produced Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, reconstructed by Bruce Montgomery; a Quadramics revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; and Beyond Control, an original musical written, directed and performed by students which is the first full-length, fully-orchestrated musical play to be presented at Penn in several years. To the many student groups who struggle for recognition, the inequitable coverage is distressing. This token "in-depth coverage" of Marat/Sade merely masks a general lack of depth or interest on the DP's part. Perhaps the DP could expand its horizons a bit, in order to include the many interesting performing arts efforts out there. LARRY WAGNER College '93 Treasurer Performing Arts Council