Mr. & Mrs. Fitch on Twitter
Went to see Mr. & Mrs. Fitch with my friend, J. Hotham the other night. While, it was impossible not to love the tender yet jaded but still lovingly crafted characters, I was constantly distracted by playwright, Douglas Carter Beane’s limited understanding of social media.
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| From Susannaspeier.com |
Its not like everyone has to follow every subtle nuance of the perpetually fluctuating world of social media. Given the fact it was the literal as well as metaphoric world of the play, however, couldn’t Beane have solicited the assistance of a slightly more tech savvy dramaturg? If that wasn’t in the budget, all he’d have needed to do was offer up free lattes and he’d have had a swarm of geeks at his beckon call in no time flat.
Lithgow as Fitch on Twitter
John Lithgow portrayal of Mr. Fitch was sublime. No surprise there. Had the guy been a Brit, he’d have been knighted years ago. But once again, I couldn’t help but be hopelessly distracted by his character’s Twitter dismissives:
I inhaled/
I exhaled/
which do you like more — inhaling or exhaling?
Twitter characterization.
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| From Susannaspeier.com |
How could Lithgow’s character –a journalist whose success had bought him a luxury loft in a great neighborhood– not have known better.
The First Thing Mr. & Mrs. Fitch Would Have Known About
The epic paradigm shattering, “arrested” Tweet that photojournalism student James Buck sent his followers in April 2009 from the backseat of a police car headed towards the Nile Delta city of Mahalla, Egypt! Not only did this epic tweet succeed in alerting the US State Department –who arranged diplomatic intervention that would lead to a subsequent tweet of “Free” in less than 24 hours– it defined the vital role Twitter would play on future hotspot stages.
The Second Thing Mr. & Mrs. Fitch Would Have Known About
The New York Times hosted Social Media Week Crowdsourcing Panel and the upcoming Shorty Awards, (also scheduled to take place in the Times building). If this isn’t proof enough that the new era of journalism is now being championed and embraced by print journalism then Jennifer Preston’s @NYT_JenPreston recent appointment as New York Times Social Media Editor ought to be.
How To Fix All This
Had the playwright asked lead actor, John Lithgow @john_lithgow for a guided tour of the Twittersphere, the story that probes the delicious topic what happens when a credible journalist fabricates would likely have taken too ambiguous a route for its traditional narrative arc to sustain. Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, like the fictitious article the leading characters create are there to entertain, rather than draw their audience into a metaphysical Charlie Kaufmanesque quandary. An up to date depiction of how social media is changing print journalism might have therefore caused the genre’s hard drive to crash. Set the play sometime in late 2007 or even early 2008, however and the portrayal would have been relatively accurate.
Lithgow as Lithgow on Twitter
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| From Susannaspeier.com |
