More on the Critical Conundrum
Posted by Edward Sobel on 8/21/2006
I read responses to the initial posting on the subject of our First Look Rep and critics with keen interest, and thank those of you who entered the conversation.
Some comments on this strand address precisely the significance and difference of First Look. First Look is a developmental process culminating in public performances, for which, yes, we charge admission. But we are trying to create a relationship with our audience that is not purely transactional, i.e. money in exchange for product. Instead, we are seeking to engage them in the process of making a play, an endeavor much more difficult to describe within the current model of “reviews”. First Look requires innovation and imagination from both the artists and audiences. How can we stimulate a similar sense in our critics?
Further, most theaters, including Steppenwolf, charge less money for tickets to “previews” than for tickets after opening – but they still charge. It is (or used to be) considered a breach of etiquette for critics to review a production during the preview process, rather than at opening. The entire run of First Look is much more equivalent to a preview process than the run of play. Is it possible, or reasonable, to ask critics to both perceive and report the difference? How can one communicate all of this, without inhibiting their genuine response?
One writer drew the analogy to buying tickets with investing in a company, and citing the notion that analysts hold companies to the same standards regardless of whether they are new.
I find the comparison provocative of further questions. Generally, we would invest money with a company only after doing significant research and verifying the bona fides of the analyst recommending it. (If you are like me, you get five pieces a day of spam from “analysts” urging me to invest in some company or other.) Do we do that with critics, or do we take the critic’s (or media outlet’s) word that s/he is qualified to express an expert opinion? Or do we not see critics as “experts”, but simply as citizens like ourselves who have the good fortune to have a larger mouthpiece? Do we build trust with a critic over time – e.g., we see things about which they have written, and find ourselves agreeing with them – and how seriously do we take a “betrayal” of that trust? In the democratizing days of the internet, anyone can set themselves up a web-site, say “ImATheaterCritic.com”, call themselves a critic, and issue their opinion to as many people as are willing to read it. How does this affect our notion of critics?
One last volley: the question of “critics”, as opposed to “reviewers”. Good criticism offers observations about a work, acknowledges its context, resists the temptation to fully dismiss or overly praise, and places the work of art at its center, rather than the critic. I note that Chicago is the birthplace of the “thumbs up - thumbs down” critical nomenclature, and ask does Chicago need critics or reviewers? As consumers of media, and theater-goers, what is in your best interest?
August 24th, 2006 at 12:01 am
i’ve always thought it best for chicago to have a helpful critic for our work because it aligns our work with the ideal of “good chicago theatre”. the only agenda being that chicago produces challenging work. although i’ve never had the pleasure of having him review my work because he had already retired by the time i had gotten to chicago, i have heard that Richard Christiansen held the work he critiqued to a high enough standard that his input raised the bar of quality within the chicago theatre community. i think that is best for our community.
September 2nd, 2006 at 5:48 am
Speaking as an occasional freelance critic for the New York Times and other outlets and as a playwright myself, I can only offer a very idiosyncratic perspective on these questions. But perhaps of interest.
One of the most interesting discussions I’ve had on this matter has been with an audience member who, sitting next to me at a performance and noticing that I had a press kit, asked me what paper I was reviewing for. When I told her “The New York Times,” she launched into an exciting gush (after all, here she was, next to a critic from the Times! This was her brush with greatness for the evening! Little did she know …) At any rate, I took the opportunity to ask her, as a regular theater goer, what she looked for in a review: I only had 350 words, I told her; what would she like those 350 words to offer?
Her response was thoughtful and insightful. She told me, first, that theatergoing is an expensive proposition (more expensive in New York than Chicago, but I think the point is still valid); that she wanted to know what she was going to get with her money. With a revival, she wanted to know why the play was worth reviving in 2006; with a new play, what she might expect to see, what differentiated it from other new plays. Interestingly, she said little about whether she was interested in my personal opinion as to whether the play was any good or not. Based on my reportage, she trusted herself to decide whether the play would be of interest to her — not whether she would like or dislike it, she’d find that out for herself.
Her reaction to me was ambivalent, I think: obviously, she depends on the Times for these reviews, so the Times itself carries some cache as harboring relatively intelligent reviewers within its writers’ ranks. And, in some of her comments to me about other Times reviewers, I could tell that she did dismiss the opinions of some Times critics whom she disliked or found offensive. (You’ll get none of these names from me, by the way.)
Putting on my playwright’s hat: perhaps we should trust the readers more in judging the validity of reviewers’ opinions. They can think for themselves.
Putting on my blogger’s hat: I’ve been writing about theatre at www.ghunka.com for three years now, so am also one of those “imatheatrecritic.com” writers. Over these three years, I have developed a readership of critics, and theater artists, both unknown and very well known indeed; and the Times gig grew from some of this writing. So yes: when I started the blog, no one knew me, but over three years my writing, for good or ill, has lent me some status of notoreity, if not authority. People know where I stand, since I’ve been writing over all these years about theatre, and know what I’ll like and dislike. (I also note that I use my blog more to advocate work I enjoy than condemn work I don’t.) So yes: with familiarity comes trust. In the public prints or on the internet.