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Darwin in Malibu

By pharyngula on August 28, 2006.

So…when is this play, Darwin in Malibu, going on tour? I'd see it.

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Entertainment

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And Hal Linden as Darwin...how can you beat that?

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Beagle: The Musical!

Looks kind of cool, but I'm a little annoyed that the female character seems to exist solely as a foil to the Great Men. I mean, I know there weren't terribly many Great Women in biology and philosophy in that era who could've been brought into the play, so I don't object to that aspect. But the trope of having a token female character who serves as the naif to whom things can be explained and makes the strawberry daiquiris is just totally offensive. So I'm hoping that the review just didn't explain her character very well and that it's actually much better done than that.

As evidence that the reviewer may well have a somewhat skewed perspective, we have this kind of disgusting last sentence:

Sarah's very being explains a great deal about how Charles Darwin could come to regard leisurely days in Southern California, spent reading soft-core porn and checking his horoscope in the newspaper, as a little slice of heaven, if not the whole thing.

If the reviewer was a man, I'd say he must've spent the whole play leering at Sarah instead of paying attention to the plot. Since it was actually a woman, I don't know what the hell she could've been thinking.

By Anne Nonymous (not verified) on 28 Aug 2006 #permalink

Here in 2006, as news reports tell us that more than half of Americans don't believe in evolution, Crispin Whittell's "Darwin in Malibu" comes along, transforming the argument between science and creationism into a comedy.

But creationism has always been A Comedy of Errors.

Ba dum bum.

Looks kind of cool, but I'm a little annoyed that the female character seems to exist solely as a foil to the Great Men.

I suspect that there is a plot point here; revealing anything more about her nature would spoil the play.