Talk:Moritz von Stuelpnagel

Blasphemous hand puppets

Single purpose account Mtg1983 appears to object to Newsday's phrase "blasphemous hand puppets", having removed it from the article twice without explanation beyond the edit summary "small cut to opening" on an edit they marked minor. Christopher Hart, writing in The Sunday Times, also mentions a blasphemous hand puppet in his summing up:

It evidently thinks it's being terribly shocking later on when Jason, and/or Tyrone [Jason's sock puppet], "redecorate" the church meeting room with various childish blasphemies: a naked woman on a cross, for instance, or the crucified Christ with an erect penis ... The problem with Hand to God, in short, is that it's terribly juvenile. It wants to be another Book of Mormon -- another vastly overrated bit of supposed "religious satire", although undoubtedly funny at times. Hand to God is funny about twice -- I liked the line "You're so far back in the closet, you're in Narnia!" -- but most of the time it mistakes shouting and swearing for wit. It's baffling to see it in the West End at all, since it really belongs off-Broadway, where it started out.

The Evening Standard similarly describes the play as a mix of puppets, sex, religion, mental illness, and profanity:

Hand To God includes the most raunchy, not to mention protracted, puppet sex scene the West End has ever witnessed. War Horse this is not; Avenue Q it is certainly nodding towards, and then way beyond. But to what end? I first caught this odd show on Broadway last year and was perplexed by it then, unsure to whom Robert Askins's scattergun satire on religion, sexual desire and, ahem, mental illness would appeal ... Four-letter words and blood pour forth.

The International New York Times asks:

How have local sensibilities taken to the gathering outrageousness, not to mention the evident authorial outrage, of a play that features sockpuppets having sex alongside various remarks that might cause believers in the audience to blanch?

There are many more examples. Reviews vary with regard to how successful or funny the play was, but all mention the sockpuppets, the sex, and religion. And reviews of his work since Hand to God invariably remind their readers that Von Stuelpnagel came to prominence because of his direction of it. He has made a point in his career of taking on "unproducible" plays. So it's important to the reader's understanding of him that not only did he receive a Tony nomination, but he received it for a work that mainstream audiences could be expected to find "difficult". The quote from Newsday conveys the context succinctly without the need for extensive explanation. I have to wonder why Mtg1983 would recoil so from a quote about hand puppets. --Worldbruce (talk) 00:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I was actually going to re-instate the original quote on the basis that it has nothing to do with objection or subjective opinion. The purpose of the inclusion for the line was a direct quote from Newsday; not a source for citation that proved the subject directed the play "Hand To God". There are dozens upon dozens of sources to back that claim. The reason for the lede line is as follows: (original): "best known for having staged blasphemous hand puppets in Hand to God" - Newsday. The lede should move the quotation mark to the end of the sentence to include the entire quote from Newsday: Newsday has described him as, "best known for having staged blasphemous hand puppets in Hand to God." Which would then present the entire quote correctly without any possibility of opinion of objection. I vote to re-instate. Maineartists (talk) 13:46, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

References

Maintenance Template: Autobiography

Users Creffett and AngusWOOF have attempted to add a maintenance template describing this page as autobiographical based on the assumption that my username connects me to the subject. This was my mistake as I created this account with the initial purpose of adding this page. However, I am not connected to the subject, do not know the subject personally, and added the page simply because I believe the subject to be noteworthy. Moritzvs (talk) 07:42, 28 October 2019

Ay, there's the rub. Moritzvs. The two main contributors to this article pre-October 27 have been users that solely created accounts to edit this article. If you did indeed - as you say - created this article with the subject's name on good faith, it looks to other editors that you realized your mistake and then began another account - not registered with WP Mtg1983 - and picked up where user: Moritzvs left off; i.e. WP:SP. Not saying you did; just saying what some WP editors usually piece together in these circumstances. The very fact that you removed the tag may also seem suspicious and should have been left to another - neutral - editor to remove once this all dies down and edits by registered WP users have had sufficient enough time to see that this article is free of possible ties to the subject. Maineartists (talk) 13:39, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Also, it would seem that yet another unregistered user has just joined this article simply to edit: Ishimrumor since all three editors have no other edits in their User Contributions histories except this article. If this keeps up, I will replace the WP:COI template based on this behavior. Maineartists (talk) 13:49, 28 October 2019 (UTC)