To the editors:
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Let me start with the more recent review of When Will the Rats Come to Chew Through Your Anus? This play is not, as Mr. Hayford says, about “the ethical nature of man,” but about a person’s attempt to create something that is better than he is and to justify his own existence through his creations. Not only does all of the action take place in a world that Willard, the main character, invented, but two of the other characters, Ben and the mechanical reproduction of Joan, are creations of Willard’s. Willard wants them to be better than he is and to judge for him whether he is worthy of living, but because he created them, they share not only his self-doubt and self-loathing, but also his indecisiveness. They are both incapable of either assuring him or destroying him.
Mr. Hayford seems to have missed this point entirely. He says that “Lucy and Peter, though delightful in and of themselves, don’t seem to fit. Why, for instance, is Lucy so one-dimensionally antigay? Her homophobia seems arbitrary, and it’s not exploited thematically–indeed it seems to disappear late in the show, when she falls in love with Ben, who admittedly has had several boyfriends.” Mr. Hayford should think about the story of Lucy’s uncle, who molested everybody in his house. They all put up with it because, they said, the uncle was the man, he had the money and the power. They could only complain among themselves. Like one of the omelette-eaters, Lucy despises herself and her partners in shame. She calls them and the uncle homosexuals. It is evident from her words that Lucy does not really know what homosexuality is. She equates it with a signal involving the fingers and the nose. Thus she fell in love with Peter who had no nose, and she falls in love with Ben because he has no fingers. The point is that, because of her fear and self-loathing, she can love people only for their weaknesses and must therefore try to prevent them from overcoming these weaknesses. This is why she is so horrified at the idea of Peter’s plastic surgery.
Fortunately, despite his inability to understand these plays, Mr. Hayford liked them both. At least his reviews did not do too much damage. It would have been very sad if his poor interpretation skills had led him to condemn a good show.
