When the Betty Comden-Adolph Green musical Subways Are For Sleeping opened on Broadway in 1961, reaction was generally lukewarm. And yet, shortly into the run, an advertisement appeared in the New York Herald-Tribune headlined "7 Out Of 7 Are Ecstatically Unanimous" and filled with laudatory quotes, apparently from the top theatre critics in the city. "What a show! What a hit! What a solid hit!" the ad quoted Walter Kerr. Howard Taubman was quoted as saying Subways was "one of the few great musical comedies of the last 30 years."

It was a trick. The Howard Taubman quoted in the ad was not the same Howard Taubman of the New York Times, and nor was Walter Kerr the Walter Kerr whose name readers recognized from their Herald Tribune. Producer David Merrick had found seven guys with the same names as the city’s biggest critics, given them free tickets and a bunch of wine, and plied them for quotes. (Merrick had been waiting, they say, to try the stunt for years—waiting until the too-uniquely-named Brooks Atkinson retired from the Times.) The Subways ad only appeared once, and only in the Herald Tribune. Other papers got wise when they noticed that the picture of Richard Watts featured a black man; Watts the theatre critic was white.

Merrick’s scam led to a brouhaha, which, in turn, generated mucho publicity for Subways Are For Sleeping, exactly as the producer had hoped. And so a show that had, in reality, gotten tepid reviews enjoyed a healthy run, and Phyllis Newman won a Tony.

It’s a fun story, and just one part of the enduring legend of David Merrick (who also once had to apologize to Taubman for calling him a Nazi on the "Tonight Show"), but reading it now, it sounds like it occurred in a parallel dimension. A strange land where a Broadway show is produced by a roguish impresario instead of a Disney-helmed corporate conglomerate; where people follow and relish the latest theatrical news; where theatre critics are quantities known well enough to be effectively satirized.

In 1961, people cared about theatre, about its business practices and its controversies and its personalities. There are still famous theatre producers and there are still famous critics—Cameron Mackintosh is famous, and people like Ben Brantley and Robert Brustein are at least well-known—but they are known to theatre people, important by and large in theatrical circles alone. When Merrick pulled his Subways Are For Sleeping stunt, it was news, and not just to theatre people.

Theatre held a cultural status that, for the most part, it no longer holds.

At the Bailiwick Repertory Theatre in Chicago, on November 26th, PerformInk hosted a panel of theatre writers and theatre artists; it was the culminating event of "Critical Condition," our fall series on theatre writing in America. I moderated a panel that included three Chicago critics (Lucia Mauro, Larry Bommer, and the Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones), three Chicago artistic directors (Sharon Evans of Live Bait, Jim Slonina of Defiant, and Bailiwick’s David Zak), and one Chicago wild card, PerformInk founder and publisher Carrie Kaufman.

We were there to discuss the state of theatre criticism, and I was worried we’d run out of things to talk about. In case the audience was overly restrained, I had extra questions in my pocket from people who couldn’t make it. (One of which, "Why do critics sometimes give away the ending?" was so simple I never thought to ask it to any of two dozen critics I interviewed in the last five months.)

But there was plenty to talk about. Evans regaled us with the story of a certain notable local critic who lost her keys at Live Bait during a show and spent an awkward 20 minutes post-show nosing around for them. Bommer discussed his experience at having a play of his produced in Chicago; in that potentially complicated professional situation, he said, he was able to put his trust in the professional acumen of his fellow-critics. Zak, crucially, noted that our entire panel was white, along with our entire audience, like nearly all theatre audiences everywhere.

In the first round of questions from the audience, actor (and PI staffer) Rob Mello suggested that, though critics might think differently, "Actors read [reviews] to either stroke our egos or get our egos slammed. That’s it." Mauro seemed startled, and genuinely distraught, at the idea. Along with many reviewers, Mauro sees her job description in part to instruct artists along with audiences—not merely to drive people to this or that show, and certainly not merely to build or denigrate Rob Mello’s sense of self-worth.

"If it’s all about your ego," she wondered, "then why do we do our jobs?"

Slonina, when asked his opinion on what critics should or shouldn’t say, noted that Jones—seated a couple seats over—had once suggested in a review that a new Defiant show strayed from the company’s mission: a good show, Jones had written, but not a Defiant show. Which led to something sounding dangerously close to an apology from Jones; he recalled lunching with Richard Christensen shortly after the Defiant review, and the older critic’s advised, "I’ve always avoided acting like a paid consultant."

Would it be useful, I asked our panel, to establish some sort of law that would regulate this aspect of the critical universe? What if a critic was not allowed to offer any suggestions about a company’s mission, programming, or overall aesthetic until they’ve been reviewing that company for, say, five years? We also tried to hammer out the vastly more complicated question of to what extent critics and artists should be pals. Slonina thought it would be inappropriate for someone to review his show with whom he’d had drinks. An audience member suggested the line might be drawn at sleeping together, which I think would belong in the "goes without saying" category.

The fundamental problem that always emerges, in attempts to regulate what critics should or shouldn’t do, is that if we handcuff them in the way they approach the theatre companies, we handcuff them in the way they can act as advocates for the theatre. If, for example, we say that critics shouldn’t offer season-planning advice or where-are-they-going-with-this-piece judgments—shouldn’t, in other words, go beyond the account of the evening—then aren’t we consigning them to be no more than consumer reporters? Aren’t we asking them to just tell us where to spend our theatrical dollar, and no more? Consider that fans of theatre may want more than an account of the evening. There are those, not just fellow-artists, but audiences, devoted audiences, who follow things like Defiant’s aesthetic direction. People who care about the business of theatre, and wonder what a favorite actor is doing next or where a favorite company might move after losing their lease, or what Chicago troupe will option the latest controversial New York smash. Fans of theatre.

Of course there are not enough such people, but no more will be won by accounts of the evening. Fans of theatre are won, first and foremost, by good shows, but also by writers who write captivating, lengthy reviews (when they can wrestle the space out of recalcitrant editors and publishers) and detailed, well-considered features.

As it has been through the course of the series, airing such issues afforded a deep pleasure. Being at the panel was like being in that alternate universe, that Merrick Land, that rarified universe where people actually care about theatre.

The issues that divide critics and artists are, to a certain extent, inevitable, just as umpires and coaches must, on occasion, holler and spit at each other for a few minutes. It’s in the nature of the beast—some might say, it’s part of the fun. Artists will continue to be infuriated with negative, poorly-considered reviews, and critics tired of whiney, ungrateful artists. But it’s fine if both parties understand the role of the reviewer differently, and it’s fine if on occasion they don’t get along: as long as both understand the things that they strive for in common. Namely, better theatre, and, crucially, bigger theatre audiences.

In September, just as PerformInk’s three-month examination of theatre criticism was finding its way to publication, the theatre world had occasion to examine itself on a broader scale. Suddenly theatre, and New York theatre especially, was asking itself how dedicated even its most dedicated audiences were: Would they come even when the economy was in crisis, when all entertainment seemed like trivia? Would they come when the world was on fire?

But the theatrical world has been on fire for some time. We don’t live in Merrick Land anymore; unless you’re The Producers or A Christmas Carol, you are producing in a tiny little niche market. In the end, theatre criticism is important to the extent that theatre is important, and, tragically—brutally—theatre just isn’t important anymore, not in the way it used to be. But of course it can be and should be, for all the reasons we take for granted, and struggle to communicate to that huge world of sports fans and Gwyneth Paltrow fans and Jay Z fans outside our ken.

At the end of the panel there was a note of dissatisfaction. Jones had just suggested that in Chicago anything can get reviewed, and that the Tribune puts no boundaries on what shows it’ll cover. A hand went up in the audience, and the guy said that’s not true, that his show had not gotten reviewed because it had teenagers in it. Jones wasn’t sure what to say to that, and it didn’t matter; the guy was already on to what he really wanted to say, namely that the whole panel was a waste of time and he hadn’t learned anything.

Was it? We didn’t answer the questions. I failed in my attempts to pass laws regulating who can write what and when. There was no final word on how close a relationship between artists and writer is too close. I never found out why sometimes they give away the endings. We didn’t have answers, but we had a full house of people who came to talk about the questions. And next door, in the Bailiwick’s main theatre, The Christmas Schooner had a full house too. Everybody was there. We all cared about theatre.

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