‘How to Succeed’

Having just seen “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” in La Jolla (“ ‘How to Succeed’ in High-Tech,” Nov. 26), I thought I’d respond to lighting designer Howell Binkley’s assessment of the show’s technology, that “audiences love it.”

The photo by Ken Howard accompanying The Times’ article is a fair one: That is what the whole show looks like. Once I realized that we were never going to get out from under that set, the increasing claustrophobia I felt began to drain any sense of fun the show had to give.

The video-screen display at the back of the stage--separated as it is by the oppressive set design--creates the weird sense of being archaic even when it has never been done before. At the very least, Des McAnuff’s “Tommy” was never stuck in a single visual image.

It was amusing to read Linda Batwin’s defense of the video images at the beginning of Megan Mullally’s big number. By the time the 31 seconds of graphics are over and you can once again focus on the singer and the song, you’ve lost the thread of it (which is particularly distressful as Mullally is one of the show’s few high points).

With all this emphasis on technology in an enterprise that is basically human, you inevitably begin to smell failure.

RICK SANDFORD

Los Angeles