| re: Totally agree | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:26 pm EDT 10/21/24 | |
| In reply to: re: Totally agree - Delvino 09:49 am EDT 10/21/24 | |
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| I think this is one of the things that makes being a theatre critic difficult. In various places, including here, I have read people criticizing critics when they compare a new revival of a play to previous productions the critic has seen. The idea, if I understand it correctly, tends to be that critics should put themselves in the position of someone who has never seen the play before and judge the production on its own effectiveness rather than on how effective it is compared to previous productions. I find that both kind of silly and impossible. You can't unsee what you've seen. You can't make yourself forget what you remember. In addition, I think a critic is supposed to be an informed and knowledgeable commentator. Not all manage to be that, but I think that's the ideal. I don't want critics who know nothing about theatre and have little experience seeing theatre. I think that's sort of the conundrum here. I don't think it's possible or perhaps even desirable for a critic not to have and at least sometimes state their opinion of the original material when there is a revival. The critic is supposed to convey to readers whether the critic finds the production worth seeing, and I don’t see how that can exclude whether the material itself is good. Some critics can pan a play but still convey the idea that some people might like it for various reasons. Rex Reed, who at one time (now long ago) was sometimes worth reading, once wrote that Walter Kerr could pan a play and still make him (Reed) want to rush out to buy tickets. I think Green kind of accomplishes that here. I think that this review may make a lot of readers want to see this production. In some ways, though not all, it reminds me of Frank Rich's review of Kiss of the Spider Woman on Broadway. Rich wrote a mixed review of the show, yet he made it sound exciting and worth seeing. Spider Woman started selling out almost immediately and I think Rich's review was part of the reason. I think this also raises the question of whether the first-string critic of a publication (how many publications besides the Times even have second-stringers anymore?) should choose not to see revivals of plays they don't like. People used to tell me I should be a theatre critic. I never wanted to be one for various reasons. (I have reviewed books for this site, although not recently, and I may again someday, but I wouldn't want to review theatre.) But if I were a theatre critic, I would have to deal with the question of whether I should recuse myself from reviewing revivals of works I don't like or productions starring actors I don't generally like. It may seem like a good idea for critics to do that, but I'm not sure it is. Is a publication or a website obliged to give nothing but favorable reviews? If that happens, then reviews basically lose meaning and purpose. If everything is good, then nothing stands out. That having been said, I have sometimes wished certain critics had refrained from reviewing certain shows and had someone else review them instead precisely because some critics are inevitably going to have strongly fixed opinions of some plays, authors, actors, and directors, opinions that may make it tough or impossible to view a production fairly. And I get your point that critics should not seem to tell artists what shows are worthy of their time and effort (not that Green did that) and what shows are not (which Green did do). So for me it's a conundrum. Boy, I had no intention of typing this much, but it just came flowing out and I typed very quickly. And I made only one typo (at least that I see) even as I typed very quickly for me, and that's unusual. |
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| Next: | Correcting Green with his own paper; the original production was not a financial hit - Delvino 01:31 pm EDT 10/21/24 |
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