I experienced my usual irritation with Jack Helbig to an unusual degree while reading his attack on Paula Killen, “State of Denial” [February 4]. Once again Helbig misses the point. The half of the “review” that purports to examine Killen’s piece “The State I’m In” is obtuse. The half that slams Killen’s press exposure is shortsighted.
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Apparently, Helbig saw a different show than the rest of us. He claims Killen’s character, Rose (not ever “Texas Rose”), “Never seems to learn or grow.” Yet the story line clearly traces Rose’s development through the open armed expectations of youth, failed first love, experiments with sexual identity, the death of a mentor, and the reintegration of self and acceptance of life without defensive fearfulness. This material is far from the “deadening sameness” of a foreign landscape that Helbig depicts as “one gray mass.” Instead it shocks us into a greater self-awareness.
Which brings us to the bizarre first half of his “review” in which he blames Killen for the enthusiastic response of his peers. Whatever grandiose fantasy leads Helbig to assume he’s Chicago’s arbiter of taste is both misdirected and shortsighted. He fails to recognize that Killen is the first local talent to perform in the Goodman’s “Solo Series” and the only person in the history of the series to sell out the house every night of the run.
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