Talk:Shakespeare for My Father

Original entry

There are details in the original entry, which I wrote, which have been edited out by those WikiWatcher policemen who keep WP on the narrow track. Thank God for the discussion page, where readers and researchers can get factual information often supplied by participants appearing in an article, but denied an appearance there. So, this was the original entry, (written by me) :-

'Shakespeare For My Father is a play by Lynn Redgrave, written with assistance from her then-husband John Clark.

The 1982 play is intended to be the first in a series about her family. It concerns Redgrave's relationship with her father, the imposing actor and family patriarch Sir Michael Redgrave. She was a shy and somewhat sickly child who saw little of her busy father when growing up, and lived very much in a fantasy world of her own making. Her daydreams, because of watching her father perform, consisted largely of Shakespearean plays and characters.

Clark did a computer search of all of the Bard's plays for emotional themes which would fit in with what Redgrave wanted to say. Together they came up with a "memory and message" play which gave her an opportunity to slip into many of the characters, following her father's life through to his death from Parkinson's, and her ultimate forgiveness of his failure as a parent.

The play was put together by Clark and Redgrave and their lighting designer Thomas Skelton, his last effort before his death [1], and presented for a week at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara before touring the United States for a year in a production sponsored by CAMI.

When the tour finished, Clark decided to take it to Broadway, against everyone's advice, and staged it at the Helen Hayes Theatre. He financed it with their family money which was threatened with confiscation by a fee collections lawyer for their bankrupt attorney law firm Finley Kumble [2]. Fearing a response akin to Springtime for Hitler, they credit enthusiastic critic John Simon with its huge success, for it played 274 performances in the 1993/1994 season, a record for a one-person show at the time, earned Redgrave a Best Actress Tony Award nomination (which she lost to Madeline Kahn), and went on to play in Canada, Melbourne, and at the Haymarket in London.

==External Links==

• Internet Broadway Database
• New York Times review
• Reference and pictures from website
• Taking the play to Broadway

JohnClarknew (talk) 19:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Authorship

Get a life, Memphisto, and stop editing this talk page! You are harassing me! Leave it alone. It belongs on this discussion page because it contains new facts, whether you like it or not. JohnClarknew (talk) 17:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Memphisto, please leave the disputed text up on the talk page.

John, please be sure that sources back up the text.

• The first source says "Produced by John Clark/Conceived by Lynn Redgrave; Written by Lynn Redgrave/Directed by John Clark". The text should reflect this accurately, using the same terms.
• You said at Talk:John Clark, "I let her copyright the play as her writing, and stayed in the background for her to enjoy the plaudits alone. But I co-wrote the play. That fact and how it began I then put in the discussion page." Currently Wikipedia talk pages aren't referenceable even as self-published sources; technically we don't know you're John Clark. You could put up a page (or may have one) about the writing of the play on your personal web site; ideally you should then use Webcite to create a backup archive for a stable reference; then cite your site here as a self-published source. You could say "John Clark later wrote that he co-wrote the play,^[ref] allowing Redgrave to take credit for the writing..." (some further explanation about the reasoning might be interesting).
• Please bear in mind that even if the published sources are wrong, Wikipedia should still cover them as fact. It is up to other sources to disagree and rebut the first sources, in their own sentences which accurately cover them. I know that for someone directly involved, this must be frustrating, but that's how neutral point of view works.
• You also said there that "The London Times obituary of Lynn's death was written by the author and actor Simon Callow, whom I have never met. He references me as the "co-writer" of our play. But the Times, Mr. Murdoch that is, won't allow links on his newspaper without payment. It's important to me that people know that we wrote the play together. Can one pay to access the obit, and then link to it? What's the policy here?"

• You can link to just about any article you want (There's a policy WP:EL...) from here, even if it's behind a paywall - just please, be sure it says what you think it says; does it actually say "co-wrote"?
• You may face resistance from people who say that an obituary isn't a reliable source about the authorship; my feeling might go either way, depending on the specifics.

Wnt (talk) 00:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the Callow piece includes this text:

• The play was co-written and directed by her husband and the father of her three children, John Clark, whom she had married in 1967. The foundation of their apparently solid relationship was shattered when he confessed, in 2000, to fathering a child with their son's future fiancee.
  • Lynn Redgrave; OBITUARIES - The actor Simon Callow remembers the gifted star of Georgy Girl [Scot Region] Anonymous. Sunday Times. London (UK): May 9, 2010. pg. 18

An announcement for a recent college production of the play says:

• The play was written by Lynn Redgrave with the assistance of her ex-husband , John Clark.
  • One-woman show set for Thursday through Saturday Idaho State Journal. Pocatello, Idaho: Aug 19, 2010. pg. A.9

There are also numerous sources (perhaps 80) that simply say Redgrave wrote it.   Will Beback  talk  00:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for this analysis, Will. You make my point beautifully. So you have proved that there are perhaps 2 reliable references for the fact that I co-wrote the play. And 80 references which say simply that she wrote it herself. Then you claim that I cannot make that edit. That someone like yourself, as a disinterested editor, should make it. BUT YOU HAVEN'T! See? Reality trumps theory! I dare you, I challenge you, to put it in the article instead of me putting it into the article. But you won't. It's called biased editing. JohnClarknew (talk) 17:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Um, I'm not sure that was his point. Your credit on the play is... problematic. We could perhaps (I'm not actually sure how Obituaries are dealt with) attribute Callow's remark within the article (i.e. "In an obituary of Redgrave, actor Simon Callow, named Clark as both director and co-writer of the play" or something similar). Depending on whether that is WP:UNDUE or not. I've played about the usual haunts for some sourcing but (not surprisingly, because they will all come from original official listings) they list only Redgrave as author. It's hardly biased editing, and, frankly, if you keep up that tired old line no one is going to bother responding. Every time you snap at someone who is trying to be helpful you just come across disruptive; not everyone is out to get you John :) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 20:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"Helpful" is a loaded comment around here :) Good guy/bad guy, which one are you? :) Shall I make the entry then? Do I have your "permission". Or will you delete it? JohnClarknew (talk) 20:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Depends how you phrase it. But I am in no real position to judge or support the inclusion either way (apart from to say it can definitely only be touched upon as Callow's "opinion") because I am uncertain how we consider Obituaries; I'm working on the assumption they are reliable given it being published in a paper with editorial control. Thoughts on wording? EDIT: do we have a link to the source, I'm blind and I missed it. Coming down on the side of including this in the following way: The play was produced and directed by Redgrave's then husband John Clark with lighting designed by Thomas Skelton. In an obituary to Redgrave, actor Simon Callow also identified Clark as co-writer.--Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 20:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The Idaho State Journal review [3] is an obvious cut and paste from an earlier version of the Shakespeare for My Father article [4], and therefore cannot be used as a reference. It is a prime example of Wikipedia influencing other media, and in all probability explains the Simon Callow obituary too. memphisto 21:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Good find. That complicates things.   Will Beback  talk  21:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Ouch yes dramatically. This could be a major headache. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 21:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)