Hasty Pudding

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I write this letter to you more in bewilderment than in anger.

Why was Nick Wurf chosen to review Bye Bye Verdi? The only requisites for a theater critic are objectvity and love of the theater. Wurf possesses neither of these attributes.

He has an avowed and undisguised dislike for the very concept of the Pudding. The review resounds with remarks betraying his utter contempt and distaste for the entire experience. Who was so cruel as to force this assignment upon him? Most perplexing, however, is his description of not Bye Bye Verdi, but the musical genre itself, as "an art form that is perhaps the most banal and vapid vehicle in the American cultural desert."

These views, particularly the latter, are fascinating, but their proper place is an editorial. His opinions represent an attempt at cultural criticism rather than an assessment of this production. Andrew T. Gardner '89