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Comment by Gwydion Suilebhan on May 18, 2011 at 7:38am

Charlene -- thanks, I do find that fascinating.

Wendy -- so glad to hear from you! One of the best things about this conversation, for me, is the opportunity I and others have had to connect with people we normally don't connect with: to cross the implicit barrier between artist and critic that has always seemed to me to be silly. I'm grateful for your contribution to the discussion, as I am for the others here as well.

I do very much appreciate the Goethe approach, as I do your acknowledgement that speaking for any one audience is probably impossible. I also appreciate that you seem to be interested in separating your own aesthetic preferences (which, incidentally, I share, it seems) from an assessment of the quality of the work. I'm not sure, however, that every critic is as able to do so (or interested in trying) as you.

Now: let's talk about that Tempest in a kiddie pool. That I would have LOVED to have seen.

Comment by Charlene V. Smith on May 18, 2011 at 5:48am

You might find Lyn Gardner's recent post interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/may/15/lyn-gardner-critics-not...

I particularly "like" the commenter who says that the performances of the actors are the least important aspect. I guess Aristotle isn't dead yet.

Comment by Wendy Rosenfield on May 17, 2011 at 11:41am

Suzi also tagged me on this, so for what it's worth, as a critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, I don't pretend I can represent an audience, since the city's theatergoers are so diverse in every way. On my best days, I try to answer Goethe's big three: What was the artist's goal? Did they succeed? Was it a worthwhile goal in the first place?

I can only review from my own highly subjective perspective, but by looking at these three questions, I can usually get across the idea that whether or not a show appealed to me personally, those involved did it justice. The touring Mamma Mia! is a prime example; not my thing, but really, overall a successful production. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Girl Talk was not only not my thing, but also poorly executed. The standards I use to make those assessments are, of course, my own, but based on years of theatergoing and writing about theater. Since Philly is so close to New York, my expectations are pretty high; after all, if companies here aren't offering work comparable to whatever can be found on or off Broadway, audiences can easily hike up the Jersey Turnpike instead.

Years ago, that wasn't even a concern; you wanted pro theater, you went to New York. Happily, the Philly theater community raised the bar so high that now the New York Times frequently sends its reviewers here. That said, I do sometimes calibrate my reviews based on, say, the company's previous work or its aesthetic, but I've found the size of a company's budget often has little to do with the quality of their work, so there's no way that, just on principle, I'd give a tiny company a pass but scrutinize a big house. I once saw The Tempest performed solo in a kiddie pool, and that performance could still stand up to any of the region's Shakespeare Festivals.

Comment by Scott Bloom on May 13, 2011 at 5:13am

You always seem to start fascinating discussions. Personally I just hope for a reviewer who writes well and has something to say. I'd rather read a review I didn't agree with than one that isn't written well enough to say anything intelligent.

Comment by Gwydion Suilebhan on May 12, 2011 at 7:34pm

Jacob: I had no idea you were a reviewer/critic. (Still need to understand the distinction there. Is is more than semantic?) Thanks for weighing in.

I think that what seems to be lurking behind both your answer and Suzi's is the relationship between the reviewer and the publication. Which is to say, really, the relationship between who you'd like to be, as a reviewer, and who your publication wants you to be. If it's your personal mission, for example, to educate infrequent theatergoers about theater, but you're writing for a publication that considers itself and its audiences part of the intellectual elite, there's a disconnect.

I've been advocating lately (in various venues) for a different relationship between arts organizations and the artists that work with them. Inasmuch as I consider reviewers artists and their publications to be arts organizations, I think what I've been saying holds: the successful publications of the future will focus on letting you be you and helping you find the audiences you want to engage with, no matter who they are. (It's a long story as to how I get there; I'll link to my TED talk when it goes live.)

In any event... this is a fascinating discussion.

Comment by Jacob Coakley on May 12, 2011 at 12:10pm

still thinking about your question on multiple audiences -- but my first reaction is to say that trying to serve multiple audiences within one piece is death. With slashed word counts, you really can't serve all masters. It's just like acting -- or any other writing -- make a strong choice, and move forward with that.

That's just my initial quick two cents.

Comment by Jacob Coakley on May 12, 2011 at 12:06pm

Suzi tagged me me on this, and as I am a reviewer/critic I suppose I should weigh in as well.

I think the most important thing is, as Suzi calls it, the contract with the audience. Both in terms of the theatre group and their audience, and the publication you're writing for and their audience.

In terms of theatre: Yes, I grade on a curve. The Utah Shakes Festival gets nitpicked more closely than the Las Vegas Little Theatre.

In terms of the publication's audience... This is a little trickier. Because -- in my mind at least -- you have to deal with two things: 1 - What the publication wants to be (Stage Directions aims to offer something different than American Theatre, which is something different than a blog) 2 - How their audience thinks of themselves. (Readers of the NY Review of Books like to think of themselves differently than someone who reads the NY Post -- even if those differences exist only when they're reading the NYRB.) 1 and 2 should be very very close to each other. But sometimes they're not. Especially in a broadcasting/print monopoly market. Does the person reading the conservative editorial pages in the Las Vegas Review-Journal really want to know about the history of the post-first-wave-AIDS-era (i.e., at least we know what's going on, we're dealing with it, but it's still scary and there's loads and loads and loads of grief over all we've lost) in NYC in the early-90s that led to the examination of relationships in Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey? Or, for that matter -- does even the person who might want to buy tickets? Are they just looking for a fun comedy?

So I think the contract between pub and audience is where you're finding most of your friction, Gwydion -- or the possibility of alienating audience members.You've got to know exactly who the intended audience is.

For me -- it's all about talking to the editor. Who do they want you to reach? Who do they want you to talk to? And then you reach out to them. Sometimes the editor is not as cognizant as Suzi's below, who knows that they have a lot of new readers in town. So sometimes you just go off what the vibe of the piece is.

Now, I will say that an exceptional exception to this rule is Chloe Veltman who -- wow, writing for the NY Times now, good for her -- used to be a reviewer for the SF Weekly, and now also writes for Bay Citizen. She always had amazingly insightful and erudite things to say, and a breadth and depth of knowledge that always made me seethe with jealousy. She's always been unafraid to be incredibly intellectual no matter her medium.

She no longer writes for the SF Weekly though -- an alt-weekly. MAybe it's because she found more high-paying gigs -- or maybe it's just because her tone wasn't right for the book.

In short -- I think the medium matters a lot more than the individual writer, and that medium needs to be tended and cultivated with writers.

But then, you'd expect the editor of a magazine to say that, wouldn't you?

Comment by Gwydion Suilebhan on May 12, 2011 at 6:01am

Suzi, I was SO very much hoping you would weigh in! Thank you.

Your "off-the-cuff" answer -- and how many of us could be so prolific and smart so casually? -- leads me to ask a follow-up question: is it possible for a reviewer to serve multiple audiences at the same time? Can you, for example, write a piece that would orient non-theatergoers to the merits of a particular production of Macbeth (there, I typed it) AND that would reveal its subtle merits or flaws to those who might have seen it a handful of times already? Personally, I would find that challenging... and if I'm engaged in a dialogue about the theater, ostensibly with other avid theatergoers, I'm sure I'd favor the latter approach.

Which then leads me to wonder whether theater reviewers aren't possibly, without intending to do so, reinforcing the cultural stereotype that suggests theater is for a "special" or elite audience. Are they slowly, gradually alienating potential audience members with increasingly erudite commentary about the work being shown? I mean, it's one thing to write about theater for, say, American Theatre, but it's another thing entirely to review for a daily newspaper, with (presumably) a wider audience. (Not that I'm suggesting talking down -- or writing down -- to anyone... )

In any event, I'd love to hear from other reviewers/critics (you'll need to explain that distinction to me) as well...

Comment by Suzi Steffen on May 11, 2011 at 10:11pm

Hi Gwydion!

Here's my off-the-cuff, in-the-midst-of-retreating-migraine take as a reviewer/critic (which, some will say, are very different things ... a reviewer doing what you say and what I talk about below; a critic looking at a bigger picture, etc.):

I think of my reviews, or longer pieces that do some of the work of reviews (*see the end of the comment for more on this), as part of a cultural conversation about the event.

That means that I do try to talk about the cultural context around the play, which I guess one could consider as training/educating a readership about theatre, except that I often expect my readership in a college town to have as much education as or more education than I do. If the readers don't, I hope they don't feel shut out, but ... hm. I should probably work on that one.

Often, I might aim my lede more at an audience that does not have that kind of education, assuming that it's best to get to the "advise you to/not to go" piece early on for readers who want that info more than anything else, and that readers who want more will keep on reading anyway.

I also consider ticket prices and resources of the company. When I'm reviewing plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival — a destination rotating repertory theatre for which tickets can (for adults) cost as much as 10 movies (plus the gas to drive to Ashland, plus the cost of a hotel room, plus food, plus maybe alcohol/nuts/etc. at the play itself) — I have far higher expectations than I do for the local community college.

Of course, I love it when the community college outstrips my expectations, as it has approximately once a year, and I am more disgusted than I might otherwise be (thanks to price/the stunning resources available to designers et. al) at an OSF/Ore Shakes production that's not very strong.

I recall a post from approximately 2007 by Lyn Gardner at the Guardian theatre blog (I think it was she; I know it was on the Guardian's blog) that was about the issue of theatre reviewers/critics seeing so many more plays than most other people and possibly becoming a bit jaded, or expecting more from a play than ... oh, "regular" theatre attendees (that is, probably not other actors, directors, stage crew, etc.). I believe she was talking about the Scottish play (is one allowed to TYPE its name on a theatre blog?!) and how many times she'd seen it, compared to the people who perhaps were seeing it for the first time and to whom it was absolutely magical. That does help me keep a certain audience in mind, but I'm not necessarily writing for them unless they want to read allusive pieces that rely on them to know a certain amount about the play. (That certain amount, I may add, is something an arts writer can add to by doing interviews with or profiles of cast members, directors, designers, etc.)

When Portland's Barry Johnson kindly Skyped into my Writing About the Arts class last term, he talked about writing reviews for people who had ALSO already seen the artistic event. Some of my students disagreed (with a scarily white-hot intensity), but I think that's a fair way to think about writing reviews, which plays into the cultural conversation idea.

On the other hand, for me, that might depend on audience/platform (am I writing for college students? For a magazine with a culturally sophisticated audience? For a theatre blog? For myself and whoever happens to read my writing? For other theatre reviewers/critics?). One of my editors reminded me the other day that readers of her publication tend to me new to the area, and she asked me to do a little more in the way of situating the company I was reviewing in the theatrical and development space of our town. Good reminders.

I have said before, much more often when I was newish to reviewing, that part of my responsibility was to let people know if they should pay for tickets. But even at the time, I thought it was much more than that — it was to discuss the places of plays in historical context and, if I knew it or could research it, theatrical context ... or in some cases, artistic context — i.e. a set designed for a farce when the play was a tragedy, or art/music in the play setting a period mood, etc. Of course, part of this comes from my training as an historian and art historian in college, and so others may feel quite, quite differently.

Early in my days of theatre reviewing, and sometimes now when I think a theatre company REALLY must do better, I would and rarely will direct the review toward the artistic director or director of the play (which, er, happens to be the same person, also who's often starring in the play, in one local group). Oh, and I should say this since you're a playwright, I also do try to situate the play in a playwright's oeuvre, if I know much about it. If I don't, I *really* try to learn ... when I have the time.

I'd love to read follow-up discussions from other critics/reviewers!

*That is, I think the work of a review is usually saying what's good/less good, in terms of a theatre group's contract with an audience, which does change from college theatre to community theatre to dinner theatre to semi-pro (pro-am) to Equity, all of which a reviewer like me must review in a single month or two — that's less important in a large city, where reviewers are likely only to have pro-am and Equity and maybe Broadway on tour — or B'way itself — to deal with. (Also, I feel strongly that no reviewer/critic should feel compelled to list all of the performers and designers in any review, as the local daily in my town seems to require of its reviewers. I mean, seriously: Are we at kindergarten awards time, here? But anyway, different story.)

Comment by Gwydion Suilebhan on May 11, 2011 at 6:28pm

I think many critics really do want theater to be great. I think most of them consider themselves advocates. I just question the ability of a critic, over the long haul, to be able to see past their own biases after a while. They can't "un-see" all the productions they've seen.

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