First in a 7-part series.

BY BEN WINTERS

Theatre artists make plays, and theatre writers react to them–and sometimes, they react to each other.

Like in 1961, when the young critic Robert Brustein, already infamous for his caustic theatre columns in the New Republic, turned his withering pencil on his colleagues in the press. "Perhaps you are a 'common’ spectator," he wrote, in response to an irate reader challenging his pan of She Stoops to Conquer. "If so, depart from me, along with your brethren the 'common’ reader and the 'common’ man, and go consult a 'common’ reviewer. You will find him in your newspaper, especially hired to cater to your taste, his virtue being that he knows just as little as you, and sometimes even less, having qualified for his present job by his supreme averageness."

Brustein has never been one to pull punches, but his vituperative condemnation of most of his peers reflects an oft-made distinction within the community of theatre writers, one as prevalent today as it was when Brustein slapped at the 'common reviewer.’ Brustein considered himself a 'critic,’ see, while the journalists he mocked ("He is your man," the article continues, "if your demands are not too severe…") were mere 'reviewers.’

So what’s the difference? The terrain that separates the reviewer from the critic is worth navigating, especially before trying to answer a yet tougher question: What exactly should a piece of theatre writing–be it review or criticism–try to achieve?

There are two categories: There are critics and there are
reviewers. Although, well…sometimes they overlap."

James Leverett isn’t ready to lay a hard and fast line between the two categories of theatre writer, and if anybody could, it’s probably him. A distinguished theatre journalist, Leverett is now Chair of the Yale Theatre School’s Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism department.

In general, "a reviewer is serving a kind of consumer guide purpose," Leverett offers. "They are looking at a production and giving it a grade in order to tell people whether to see it or not. The purpose of the critic is not first and foremost this kind of consumer advocate. The purpose of the critic is to discuss the work in depth in some way or another."

There is no "stark line" between the two classes, as New York playwright and sometime journalist Jeffrey Sweet points out. "There are times when a daily reviewer can rise to the level of criticism," he says. "And there are times when people who are supposed to be taking the long view turn out to be very shallow, when they’re supposed to be critics."

"The best [reviewers], at least in my judgment, also give various kinds of context to the production," says Leverett. "The more that they do that, the more that they are serving a critical function."

Clearly, the line between reviewer and critic is permeable. But typically, a review is shorter and mostly given over to a description coupled with the writer’s immediate reaction; criticism is more likely to forego the plot synopsis in favor of thematic considerations or, say, a historical sketch of the playwright’s life. And usually, a review is what appears overnight in your daily newspaper, while a piece of criticism is published in a weekly rag (for example the long pieces in The Village Voice or Chicago Reader) or a national (The New Yorker, where John Lahr has held court for the past decade, or Brustein’s New Republic).

Not every writer would be satisfied with this last distinction. Andrew Patner, a Chicago area freelancer who regularly contributes overnight notices to the Sun-Times, says "I’m not really overly interested in reviewing.

"Yes, you want to give some people a sense of what the ideas were behind creating this, and is the whole thing worthwhile," Patner says. "But I also want to get into something larger."

In other words, whether a particular reaction to a show is a review or a work of criticism is to a large degree in the eye of the beholder–and the writer. Patner considers his work, which also appears in the gay weekly Windy City Times and on WFMT radio, to be criticism. But, at least in the Sun-Times, it comes adorned with one of the hallmarks of the review: a terse summation of merit, usually four-or-less-stars, in the case of Sun-Times a "recommended or not recommended."

Sweet takes one more stab at the difference between reviewer and critic: "To me a review is something you read to decide whether you’re going to see this show in question," he says. In contrast, "You sit and have a dialectic with the critic who has seen the same thing you have. A critic doesn’t have to agree with you, a critic just has to be provocative and articulate enough to make you see some interesting stuff."

Armed with these admittedly loose definitions, we can take on the larger issue, turning first to the function of the review.

David Zak is sick of being reviewed–he’s ready to be criticized.

"As a director, I’m looking for something that offers true dramatic criticism," says Zak, artistic director of Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory Company. "I mean true dramatic criticism, as opposed to the whole Siskel-and-Ebert, thumbs up, People’s Choice sort of thing…it’s just 'yeah it’s good’ or 'no, it’s not good,’ that sort of thing."

But that little 'yeah, it’s good’ is of obvious importance, at least for theatre-goers trying to decide where to spend their hard earned dollars and for producers trying to fill seats–producers like Zak, who readily admits that, he appreciates the thumbs-up reviews when he can quote them on a poster.

Chris Jones, a freelancer who contributes regularly to both Variety and the Chicago Tribune, explains that a reviewer must necessarily act as "a consumer guide."

"In a city like Chicago, where there are 200 theatres, limited time, limited funds and limited budgets, certainly a review–especially in a mainstream daily paper like the Tribune–should separate the wheat from the chaff," Jones says. "Is this worth time? Is it worth money?"

"Here’s what you have to do for the reader," explains Michael Somers, who supplies reviews to the Newhouse News Service and is president of the New York Drama Critics Circle. "You tell them: What is it? How well is it done? Is it worth seeing?"

Within limited space–writing for an audience not particularly interested in just theatre–giving a quick explanation of the show and a thumbs up or thumbs down might be all there’s time for. "It used to be I was writing a 25 to 35 column-inch review," explains Somers. "Now…I usually need to bring it in around 15. With that [limitation] you really are reviewing–you’re giving an impression. You’re not going on about the aesthetics and the great debates. There’s just not space."

"A reviewer is often chosen by a newspaper editor not because they’re an expert in their field, but because they can serve as a kind of man or woman on the street," James Leverett adds. "This is a regular person who is not going to talk above the readership–they are going to be one among the readership…and be able to reflect the taste, and maybe lead a little, but more or less coincide with the readership."

"With the dailies, you always have to keep in mind it’s a much more general audience," says Lucia Mauro, who contributes regularly to both the Tribune and a variety of weekly and monthly publications. "It has to use language that is much more understandable."

Sometimes, for the people being reviewed, this effort to keep theatre writing from being too "high-minded" can come off as plain ignorance, especially when the writer is a little too much the 'man-on-the-street.’ Steve Scott, associate producer at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, says, "I’ve been in some cities and seen that problem, where the food critic suddenly becomes theatre critic and they don’t really know anything about the art form."

"It can happen that a journalist without any particular theatre knowledge becomes a solid theatre writer," says Leverett, citing Richard Eder who wrote briefly for the New York Times. He adds, "But there are some cases where someone is taken off the garden section and put in the theatre section, and they just give extremely run-of-the-mill [reviews]–this was good, this was bad."

Damien Jacques ended up as the theatre reviewer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in 1980 because he was the guy in the newsroom who knew a thing or two about drama when the gig opened up.

"I didn’t seek this job, as will often happen at daily newspapers," Jacques says. He was a beat reporter who had spent time covering the music scene, when "the person who was theatre critic was being promoted. They looked around the newsroom and said, 'Who’s ever been to a play?’"

He does his research, Jacques says, but he comes to theatre as an enthusiast, not a scholar. He prides himself on knowing his readers, and that they know him. "What I’m trying to do is have an ongoing conversation with my readers…they get to know you through the reviews."

This, perhaps, is the ultimate goal of the review: To offer a consistent set of opinions, so that people reading your work, trying to decide how to spend an evening, will know that if you like something they’ll probably like it, too. A casual survey of theatre-goers reveals that this is often exactly what they’re looking for in a review–someone with whom their tastes dovetail.

"There are certain reviews that mean much more to me than others," says Linda, a middle aged Manhattanite and frequent New York theatre-goer. "Only because I usually end up agreeing with them. There’s others I’m very suspicious of."

"It’s a good review if it accurately predicts what your response is likely to be," says Sweet. "You find a reviewer whose tastes matches yours appropriately, and that’s a nice marriage."

Albert Williams, chief critic at the Chicago Reader, sees his job as much more than offering predictions of what his readers will dig.

"That’s bullshit," he says. "I gave a lecture at Columbia [College], and this student said, 'Isn’t your job to be my eyes and ears? Aren’t you just the public’s representative there?’ I said, 'No, because you don’t know as much as I do.’"

Williams’ pithy reply begins to describe the other category of theatre writer. The critic is the writer who presumably knows more than his or her readers, and who attempts to do more than just rate. He or she is trying to teach, to interpret, to elucidate not just what is going on onstage, but what is going on in the world beyond that stage. Why, in other words, the show is important.

"I think what’s most important about criticism isn’t the gladiatory aspect of thumbs up or thumbs down," says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Jeffrey Jenkins, outgoing chairman of the American Theatre Critics Association and the newly-appointed editor of "Best Plays Annual."

"I think what’s most important is finding a lively and readable way to locate what theatre means in our culture," adds Jenkins.

"Was the critic acting as an interpreter, was he or she placing this work in the context either of the theatre’s work, the playwright’s work, the ensemble’s work?" wonders Martha Lavey, artistic director at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, when she reads what’s written about her work. "Was the [critic] reading the production? Which doesn’t happen a whole lot, frankly, and disappointingly…because to me that would be the whole fun of being a theatre critic."

"The critic is a teacher," insists Williams. "He’s not merely there to say this is a good show, go see it. You’re teaching something about theatre, or about the subject that this play happens to be about: whether it’s Eugene O’Neill or incest or whatever."

And when he reads papers other than his, Williams sees too much reviewing and not enough teaching. "I think the Reader is the only paper [in Chicago] that consistently offers the things I’m talking about," adds Williams.

Jones might disagree–he maintains that he, and most daily theatre writers, try to get as much teaching done in overnight reviews as possible. "A good review uses the show as a pretext to take on other issues," he says. "To speculate on the nature of life and art, to write something that’s interesting to read even if someone has no intention of seeing the play."

Judith Egerton of the Louisville Courier-Journal–though essentially a subscriber to the reviewer school of offering "fundamental things: the who, what, where, when, and how" of the production–says that she, too, tries in the limited space available to get into criticism. As she defines it, "I try to say not only what the play is essentially about, but to try to get into why somebody should care."

"Why would you want to go see W;t, a play about some woman dying?" Egerton offers as an example. "Because it’s something we’ve all shared. Knowing people who’ve died, knowing that we’re all going to die…"

Egerton writes from the gut, on an immediate deadline, but for her as for Williams, criticism can be defined as transforming an immediate reaction into a sort of meditation.

"This is what you get [from the play]…this is what I got…this is why you’ll get it…"

Richard Foreman, founder and artistic director of New York’s avant-garde Ontological-Hysterical Theatre, suggests another important function of criticism. "A good critic," he says, "can help tell [the artist] what he’s doing.

"What has been very helpful is when smart critics say things that reinforce what you intuit about what you’re trying to do," Foreman muses. "That reinforcement, from a good critic, helps you hew the line in your talent. It reminds you: Yes that’s where I want to go with that."

Williams of the Reader expands on this idea, arguing that the critic is there to act as an interpreter of the artist’s ideas. "The thing about being an actor and a playwright is that you cannot over-intellectualize. You have to turn off thinking about the meaning, the structure, the ideas. What a critic does is intellectualize. Look for the meaning, the structure, try to write about that and educate."

This may be another division between the critic and the reviewer, for Damien Jacques doesn’t put interpretation in his job description. "I want to inform, sometimes I need to do a little bit of teaching. But I think a critic has to be careful…you shouldn’t have to do too much," he says. "If you’re explaining productions to your readers then there’s something wrong with the production…if what they’re doing is vague or incomprehensible, then clearly there’s something wrong with what they’re doing–it’s not the critic’s job to explain it."

For Chicago freelancer Lawrence Bommer, the goal isn’t just to interpret the art–in his view, criticism actually completes it.

"Ideally we are the final part of the artistic process that began when the playwright started writing the script," Bommer argues. "[Criticism] is another form of the art–and not necessarily even a passive form. It is the kind of intelligent reaction the playwright expected from the start, or he wouldn’t have gotten into it."

Lucia Mauro says she writes her reviews in part so that directors and performers might take her advice. "I divide my work between the artist and the [readers]," she says. "There is a way of including both in there."

There are certainly examples of artists "listening" to critics in this direct way. When former New York Times critic Frank Rich saw the original production of Kiss of the Spider Woman and wrote that Chita Rivera would have been better in the lead, the director recast the role before the show hit Broadway.

But most artists are hesitant to say they listen too carefully.

"There have probably been a couple of reviews that made me think about what I’m doing," says Foreman, "But on the whole, I’m trying [in my work] to clarify something for myself. If I have succeeded and other people respond to that clarification, that’s very nice to hear, but it doesn’t teach me anything. And if I haven’t succeeded, how could they possibly know what direction I’m trying to go, but didn’t go?"

"We all know if a show works or doesn’t. We also know, most of the time, why it works or doesn’t," argues Kelly Leonard, executive producer of Chicago’s Second City. "It is nearly impossible for a reviewer to give us something new–we’ve dissected the product so many times ourselves."

Steve Scott isn’t so sure: "If I get several critics saying the same unexpected thing, I will look at that and say, 'Hmm, what did I do here that led them down that path? What can I do differently in the future, what should I not do again?’"

Maybe Leonard just hasn’t gotten the right reviews and Scott has. Maybe Scott has been criticized and Leonard only reviewed. Or maybe the distinction isn’t really between "critics" and "reviewers," but between a job well done and one done poorly.

"My thesis is that reviewing is just short-order criticism and it had better be good," says Dan Sullivan, the former Los Angeles Times critic who now runs the Drama Critics Institute at the O’Neill Center in Connecticut. "When you say 'we have too many reviewers and not enough critics,’ you’re defining your terms poorly. What you mean is, 'we have too many bad reviewers.’ That’s what you meant to say."

Or, as Michael Barnes, the new chairman of the American Theatre Critics Association, would have it, "A good critic can work in any format. If a reviewer assumes the primary role of consumer reporter, then that’s the kind of review they produce. It’s also equally true that [critics] that have the luxury of limitless space can bore the pants off their readers."

True enough–not to mention that many potential audience members don’t like to read long, deeply informed reviews, for the simple reason that they don’t want to know too much in advance. Like Maggie, a 20-something theatre patron in New Jersey, who says, "I don’t like to see the plot or the ending completely exposed, but I do like to get a good idea of what the show is about and what to expect." In other words, what Maggie wants is a solid, well-written review.

"I think the theatre writer should be a journalist first–report accurately, evaluate fairly," Barnes concludes. "And an artist when possible."

Home

What are we doing this for?

Story 2:
Power, Money & Poisen Pens in the Real World of Theatre Writing

Story 3:
The Making of a Theater Writer

Story 4:
The Ethical Dilemmas of Theatre Journalism

Story 5:
A week in the life of a critic.

Story 6:
Recovering Arts Coverage

Story 7:
Talking It Out