Tynan's Anger

Arts & Culture Commentary from a Loving Digital Skeptic

How Michael Riedel is killing theater criticism

Posted on | December 22, 2008 | No Comments


Watch this episode of Theater Talk very carefully. Michael Riedel, the instigator of most of the conversation, is not treating the death of theater criticism as a “what if” question. He’s treating it as a given. If the aforementioned death hasn’t happened already, it will, in Riedel’s viewpoint. Very subtly, he manipulates the conversation to talk about the death of intelligent theater criticism and suggests that the rise of celebrity gossip, outrageous blogging (never mind the outrageousness of his column), and an A.D.D. culture will make the likes of Kenneth Tynan and Clive Barnes obsolete. There’s a reason he’s doing this: nothing would benefit Riedel personally more than exactly that kind of death.

The panel he assembled includes two critics who are in his pocket; Mike Kuchwara of the Associated Press, the only theater critic who benefits from critics losing their jobs, and Jacques le Sourd, who even Riedel himself has admitted is a close confidant and potential leaker. John Heilpern, for one, is not having any of it, and saves this panel from turning into an outright eulogy for a medium that isn’t quite in the coffin. But Riedel wants you to believe it is. Because that would benefit Riedel.

Let’s make one thing clear on Riedel: he is not a theater critic. Riedel is a gossip columnist for a trashy tabloid. He will trash shows in his columns, but those are reviews in the same way New York Post covers are editorials. He mainly succeeds by being the only voice for the inner workings of Broadway—for theater geeks, that is exceedingly rare, interesting information. But that he writes about a more obscure field doesn’t reduce the fact that he embraces the worst traits of tabloid journalism. He will be nasty instead of being insightful, trade on rumor and shallow personal aspects of the theater scene rather than critical judgment, and he’s probably more corrupt in doing so than we like to think. Riedel writes for the New York Post, a publication most good New York theater liberals don’t trust with anything else; in fact, they usually despise the paper like nothing else in the New York media. So why should they make an exception for Riedel?

When you think carefully about the source of the eulogies, most of the immediate talk of the death of theater criticism that has gotten the theater press and blogosphere in a tizzy stems from Riedel himself. Figuring himself as a theater critic, Riedel wrote a column in October that bemoaned the dimished role of the theater critic in the internet age. He said nothing new, and I took pains to point out that theater criticism is far from dead. The reason the idea took off, however, was because the theater press figured that if even Riedel is worried, we’re in trouble.

Listen, here’s what everyone’s already known about Riedel even before the death of print began. He’s an egotist, unafraid of controversy and utterly devoid of empathy; a careerist, and a manipulator. He is not only willing to trample over anything and anyone to get on top—he takes active glee in the process. These are all the classic traits of a tabloid journalist, and they’re the traits that make the rest of the the traditonal journalistic world avoid tabloid journalism like the plague. Riedel just happens to have an Ivy League education and concern himself with a “high art” rarely privy to tabloid journalism anymore in the U.S.. All the conniving parts of his trade and personality are still there.

So I would venture to say that Michael Riedel is actively, intentionally manipulating the talk of theater press to bemoan the death of theater criticism more than actually cover theater. Why would he do this? So he can turn the overall discussion to the TMZ side of theater, maybe even integrate a bit of Hollywood scandal into the stictchings of Broadway “coverage.” This would give him the authority in the theater world Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood currently have.

Watch that video, and you see that Riedel is doing exactly what I have just described in this discussion. Take this panel discussion as a microcosm of the theater discussion at large, and it’s scary to think of how powerful Riedel would become if no one had the guts like Heilpern to stand up to him. Normally I don’t call on spurned theater artists to fight back against their detractors in the press. But no journalist should instill a culture of fear over a community like Riedel has. It’s time the theater community, of New York and the nation, learned to grow a spine and fight him. He’s not the sharpest mind we have. He can easily be outwitted.

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