Playhouse Production

Nancy Churnin’s Aug. 14 piece (“A Good Thing Comes in Small Package”) about the viability of small musical entertainments ought to be heeded by the folks at La Jolla Playhouse. Because it is only after 43 minutes that they finally allow us to hear a Scott Joplin rag in their production of “Helioptrope”--a show about ragtime music.

I guess they think it would be pandering to focus on music in this show. So they have lavished talent, facilities and money on this playwright’s trivial notion, apparently only because it goes against the grain of “popular” theater. Isn’t that pandering of another sort?

CHUCK NEWTON

Del Mar