Cease-and-desist demands were received by the creators of the droll comedy Death of a Salesman: The Sitcom on opening night, despite having been advertised for months, the show's writer Danny McGinlay says.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Fringe show cancelled after threats from Arthur Miller estate
Cease-and-desist demands were received by the creators of the droll comedy Death of a Salesman: The Sitcom on opening night, despite having been advertised for months, the show's writer Danny McGinlay says.
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5 comments:
I'd like to able to say that i understand where the Arthur Miller estate is coming from in terms of copyright, but i honestly don't believe this is what any play write would have wanted. At this point all they are doing is stifling theatrical creativity. They may say they are trying to protect their copyrighted works and i understand that if a very fine line, but there is no justifiable reason to go this hard after such a small company. In a bigger sense yes, do protect original works, but be open to people taking creative license as long as they credit you. How else con we expect progress? If we aren't allowed to innovate then we can expect nothing new of theater.
I am not sure I see why they are listening to the Arthur Miller Estate in the first place. If it is so much of a different show that it could stand up in court according to the copyright lawyers who were consulted before they went to Arthur Miller's Estate, then why didn't they just go ahead with the show that has a different name and 75% different dialogue? I think what's truly crazy is that they've canceled the show so quickly without the Arthur Miller Estate seeing a script or really giving it thought. If they fought this and worked to send this through the proper channels it might have gone through.
It is hard to hear of situations when people are claiming that creativity is being stifled, which I agree is happening 90% of the time. But I truly feel that in this case, they just went about it the wrong way. It seems like this show would have been possible if someone had presented a professional and complete set of evidences that would have shown the Arthur Miller Estate that what they were doing should have been legal.
I think it is completely ridiculous that Arthur Miller would command them to cancel the show without even looking at the script or watching the show while claiming copyright infringement. I also agree with Alex and Abagail that the company should not have caved in so easily if they really didn't infringe on copyright and were 75% original. It just reaffirms to people like Miller that satirical works or parodies can be easily written off and stopped due to copyright because the writers will not fight back.
Unfortunately, that's the luck of the draw. The estate holds priority. That being said, I definitely don't agree. If we can't push the boundaries in theatre and the arts, then where else can we push them? If anything, this theatre company is creating a piece of work that is going to give Death of a Salesman more publicity: people see the satire and want to read or reread the original play. Yeah, I understand that they hold the ultimate power, but as long as they're not destroying the script, the theatre company should be able to do whatever they want with it. This show was not done out of bad intentions, if anything they were paying the ultimate homage to Arthur Miller's work. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.
Although the idea of a "Death of a Salesmen" parody isn't exactly something that appeals to me and doesn't entirely sound like great theatre, the Arthur Miller estate was probably in the wrong. For one thing, it's blatant censorship. But more importantly to me, it was just inconsiderate for them to shut the production down right at the last minute. That said, I have a different perspective on playwrights' rights after doing research on the 1984 production of "Endgame" in my Foundations II class. I think directors do have the right to interpret playwrights' work, and this is a practically entirely new play but I can see now too how sometimes it feels to the playwright (or the playwrights' estate) like a director is entirely neglecting the point of the play.
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