Brian Kelly
Denver
The Morals Squad
Regarding Eric Dexheimer's "The Bong Goodbye," in the May 14 issue:
I'd like to know what it is that the concerned citizens of Alamosa are trying to accomplish with their crusade. It's obvious that Mr. Primavera wasn't breaking any laws and that this is more of a moral battle than a legal one. What does forcing your morals on someone else accomplish besides making that person dislike you? All a person has to do is look around to see that there are a lot different versions of wrong and right, and any one person's version is no more correct than another person's. Maybe someday people will realize that they are not right and every one else is not wrong 100 percent of the time and stop treating the rest of the world as if they're morally superior. Then maybe we can actually try to get along for a change and let each other decide how we want to run our own lives. But I'm sure that would be immoral by someone's standards, and they'll make sure we can't do it for our own sakes.
David Simpkins
Arvada
A Modest Error
While I greatly appreciated Michael Paglia's mention of Rebecca Vaughan's current exhibition in Gallery Van Go ("Rebels With Causes," June 11), I must point out one major factual error. Paglia stated that the van gallery is owned by "artist Joe Miller." This is incorrect. I am a newspaper editor and freelance art critic. Calling me an artist severely cheapens the term.
Joe Miller
Denver
Tilting at Windmills
I was disappointed that Jim Lillie's review of the Denver Center Theater Company's Don Quixote ("The Impossible Dreck," June 11) underestimated the production and the significance of less traditional theater in general. Lillie's statement that this production "only serves to confuse spectators who thought they were making the trip downtown to see a classic tale" gives the impression that theatergoers can passively sit back amid their cushions of expectations as they do while watching a sitcom on TV. I don't believe that theater is a one-way exchange that frees the audience of any creative responsibility.
I feel that Lillie's attitude that this production was simply a "lame experimental attempt" or only "on-the-job-training" for the company members is dangerous. It fails to acknowledge the audience's responsibility in experimental theater and, consequently, does not urge spectators to stretch their artistic limbs in synch with the theater artists in this new endeavor. I wholeheartedly support the Denver Center's newest attempt at experimentation. What could be more important than finding the theater of today, of this very moment? Just as Lillie acknowledges the artist's right to test and obliterate boundaries, I urge the audience to play its part in testing and obliterating its own expectations to become an equal partner in the creative theatrical experience.
Maiya Murphy
via the Internet
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