HOW TO SAVE THEATER CRITICISM - Part One

Image via WikipediaHOW TO SAVE THEATER CRITICISM

Lately there’s been a lot of rambling about the death of theater criticism. Michael Riedel has felt demeaned as an old stodgy covering theater, a far cry from the classic depiction of the theater critic. The Playgoer has wondered whether mainstream theater is now immune to critics in the same way that movies have gotten. On a guest post on The Critical Condition, Variety’s Sam Thielman saw the role of theater criticism deteriorating and scattering across the medium’s spectrum.

Over the next few days, I will give my take on the role of theater criticism and the critic in contemporary and future American theater. In Part One, I will explore differences in the theatergoing experience between the critic and uncommitted audience member. In Part Two, I will explore the relevance of theater in a digital age. In Part Three, I will conclude my discussion by outlining the role of a theater critic in the current economic and cultural climate.

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PART ONE
No Sex for the Critic: Why theater critics are not normal people
How do normal people see theater? Normal people go to a show with their significant other, usually with dinner beforehand. After they see the show, they go home, have sex, and go to sleep.

When a theater critic sees a play, he needs to find time in this cycle to write a review. When exactly can the critic fit that in? Do critics write reviews before sex? After sex? During? (At least in their heads). Do they wait until their significant other goes to sleep, then get out of bed at 3 a.m. and write the review? That doesn’t sound all that healthy.

The point of this admittedly silly thought experiment is to show that there is no real way to reconcile what a theater critic does with what a regular audience member experiences seeing theater. If you have a deadline, you can’t act like a normal individual when you see theater. If you’re a good critic, you also need to think intensely about the show, and do research before and after seeing it. But the very nature of the theatrical experience as it relates to one’s mundane life is fundamentally different between the critic and the normal audience member.

That difference does not mean that the critic is out of touch with the audience, nor does it mean that the critic is the only one expert enough to opine on a show. But this problem does offer an explanation for why the opinions of the critic and audience member clash so frequently. If the fundamental experience of a show is different, of course opinions will vary. The important thing is to remember that the critic’s primary responsibility is to the reader, and to know what kind of audience is reading the publication you’re writing for. No publication represents a perfect cross section of a play’s audience, even for small, far off-off-Broadway shows.

Here's where I go out on a limb: what I’m arguing is that it is not the critic’s responsibility to tell the reader whether or not to see a show. The fact that the audience member has to pay money to see theater, while the critic does not, creates an irrevocable disparity between the critic and reader in the decision to see a show in the first place. Instead, the critic should focus on what his audience should keep in mind about a show when (not if) they do see it. The essential role of the critic is to give voice to an opinion that represents a segment of the theatergoing audience about what was good about a show, what wasn’t, and what was significant regardless of quality. If a theater critic doesn’t do this—whether it be in the New York Times or in a blog no one reads—who does?

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This Just In: Criticism is Dead!

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The Guthrie Theater gets childish

It never ceases to amaze me how theater companies across the nation, even those as prominent as the Tony Award-winning Guthrie Theater, simply cannot take their lickings from the press. I understand that theater, which is more limited in appeal than movies or television, has a harder time recovering from negative reviews than other media. But that still doesn't mean that they're not in a position of public exposure, and subject to the exact same criticism as anything else in public exposure.

In the latest case of critical reactionary drama queenery, a full page ad by the Guthrie was placed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune after the paper gave their most recent production a negative review. While the ad had been "planned for months," the content, decided upon after the reviews came in, feature a near-exact copy of the positive review from the alternative weekly CityPages. The Guthrie's former Broadway marketing guru Trisha Santini had this to say:

"There was something about the way [CityPages critic] Quinton talked about" the show, Santini continued, "that I think spoke to audiences trying to make a determination. There was a way in which he framed it which was in sync with what we hoped for."

Yes, because it was the lone good review after all the other major papers' reception to the play could politely be described as sub-par?

Santini denied that the ad was out of sour grapes: "This is not getback; it's not a retaliatory strike of some sort. We don't have the luxury of doing that. And even if we did, we wouldn't do it." This is what we in the media biz call "horseshit," especially after you talked about how the CityPages critic "spoke to what you were trying to do." Ultimately, this is a black eye for the otherwise respectable Guthrie. They've turned a mild slump—one that every theater goes through—into a credibility issue. That's Broadway-level marketing right there.

Zero Star Hall of Shame

One of the benefits of regularly reading The Guardian's theatre blog is the discovery of new theater blogs. Though they've seen to pop up like candy this past year, the best ones are still hard to find. Kudos to Kelly Nestruck for directing me to the West End Whingers. Specifically: they're zero star hall of "fame" which chronicles shows getting a zero star rating in the London press. As much as I will defend American theater, this type of thing simply couldn't exist in the states. For one, the little press theater gets in New York or Chicago rarely gives star ratings. And even if they do, most refuse to go lower than 1 star. It was even controversial years back when the New York post introduced the "half-star." Compared to the British press, U.S. critics remind me of the following exchange from The Critic:

Duke: Why the hell do you have to be so critical?
Jay: I'm a critic.
Duke: No, your job's to rate movies on a scale of good to excellent.
Jay: What if I don't like them?
Duke: That's what good's for.

That being said, it's still a rare entity, as even the particularly bitchy British press only had 5 inductees into the Zero Star Hall of Fame. See, we critics are not that bad, honest!