Talk:Seat 12

The Deputy premiered in western nations first
This article contains the claim "The play (i.e. The Deputy) toured the Eastern Bloc and then proceeded to tour the free world."

This claim of travel writer Melik Kaylan (Rehabilitating Pope Pius XII, Forbes, Oct. 28, 2008) is contrary to the historical truth. The historical pattern of events was exactly contrary: "The play toured the western world and then proceeded to tour the Eastern bloc."

User History2007 has backed this false claim. This falsification of theatre history should be eliminated if Wikipedia still claims to be a serious online encyclopedia. --Diggindeeper (talk) 20:31, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Not a big deal if you want to express both views. Personally, I do not care if it appeared on he moon first, as long as you do not start an edit war over a minor issue. Just modify it to say these two people disagree about where it appeared first. Not a big deal for the play, and the play itself is a minor footnote to history anyway. History2007 (talk) 20:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * There exists no controversy in academia on where the play was first presented. I attach a comprehensive list of the play's international productions from 1963 to 1966 (data source: Rowohlt publishing house, owner of the copyright):


 * Travel writer Melik Kaylan just did a poor job in investigating the facts back in 2008. He may not be a contemporary witness of the historic “Deputy debate” of 1963. That this article depends upon poorly researched magazine pieces like Kaylan's is symptomatic. --Diggindeeper (talk) 21:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, so why not just add that Kaylan's account doe snot match other records? Again, no big deal. The reader can see that. History2007 (talk) 21:33, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Reasonable would be to draw on relevant theatre history publications instead of wasting time in correcting a scribe whose field of expertise is travel. --Diggindeeper (talk) 21:44, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I think I'd tend to agree with Diggindeeper here. I think the sentence is demonstrably erroneous. I think we have a consensus to remove it. I'll go ahead and do so. Mamalujo (talk) 19:49, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Aaaaaaaaaaah, some agreement at last! Will someone go get the champagne please? So let us leave it there and move on. History2007 (talk) 20:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Reliability of claims?
One finds it somewhat disturbing that this article spends eight paragraphs spelling out the claims (true or false) of Ion Mihai Pacepa; and then, in the concluding sentence, notes almost in passing that "Pacepa's story has not been corroborated."

I might also note that this article engages in some smears-by-association and what seems to be factual inaccuracies.

Rolf Hochhuth, author of the play The Deputy, is sneeringly referred to here as the "claimed" playwright (is there any evidence that he did not write it?); meanwhile, the producer of the play, Erwin Piscator, is described as having "sought asylum in the USSR during the war."

However, Wikipedia's own articles on Piscator state that this left-wing director-producer married a French dancer in Paris in 1937; that "Piscator and [his wife Maria] Ley subsequently immigrated to the United States in 1939"; and that beginning in 1940 Piscator ran a theatre workshop in New York. It is difficult to see how Herr Piscator could have "sought asylum in the USSR" while he was coaching drama students on 12th Street in Manhattan.

LewisChessman (talk) 20:42, 29 April 2023 (UTC)