Marowitz and LATC

Although I appreciate Jan Breslauer’s sprightly piece (Dec. 16) on my Jekyll-and-Hyde persona, there is one falsehood and two errors that cry out to be corrected.

During my brief period with Mame Hunt at the LATC, I was at no time banished nor banned from the theater. It is a colorful piece of journalistic malice to write that security guards were “periodically instructed” to keep me out but, had they done so, I would not have been able to fulfill the conditions of my employment. After thoroughly fouling up the literary department, I was brought in to clear up Hunt’s mess when she left for Berkeley and stayed long after she left, so she had no firsthand knowledge of anything that occurred after her departure. As for her slurs against my character, I strongly doubt that Hunt has ever known a man who was not “a racist, a sexist” or a would-be-rapist.

As for Susan Mason’s remarks, rape seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Hamlet, in my adaptation, does not rape Ophelia; he merely kisses her roughly--almost as roughly as she is abused in Shakespeare’s own Nunnery Scene. Ophelia does not wear a “tear-away dress” (whatever that is), she simply wears a short one.

CHARLES MAROWITZ

Malibu