You may be forgiven for mistaking the next meeting of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle for a maternity ward; this week brought a slew of contenders tripping over their Kleenex boxes for a shot at the Most Lachrymose Reviewer honor. Yesterday, Ben Brantley in a think-piece for the New York Times admitted, “When the big party moment came around in The Suit, I still had tear tracks on my face from earlier scenes” — maybe his essay could be more accurately described as a “feel-piece.” Also yesterday, the New Yorker‘s Hilton Als described himself as overcome with tears at a press performance of Good Person of Szechwan: “We cry with Shen Tei because Taylor Mac will not let her faith go,” he says. Come, come, Mr. Als — I saw that show too. Stiff upper lip and all that; it’s a very good, imperfect production of a minor Brecht play, not the Resurrection of Our Lord. And today, reviewing a Florida production of A Raisin in the Sun, Terry Teachout writes, “If you’d been at last Saturday’s matinee, you would also have heard weeping throughout the auditorium during the final scene of this glorious revival. Never have tears been so honestly earned.” I fear that Mr. Teachout may have disqualified himself here by reporting on the audience’s tears rather than his own.
All this, just in the first week of February — if this keeps up, it’ll be a long, wet year on the Rialto. Audiences are herewith advised to be on their guard: they don’t want to slip in the pool of tears collecting next to the aisle seat. Apparently British critics are made of sterner stuff: when the Guardian‘s Lyn Gardner goes to the theatre these days, she’s usually just bored.
A few other notes from around the Web this week:
HowlRound, the Web site for Emerson’s Center for the Theatre Commons, is accepting applications for critics who will emphasize “positive inquiry and rigorous thinking” in their writing. Thomas Garvey is skeptical.
The new issue of American Theatre magazine features Christopher Wallenberg’s extensive profile of playwright Christopher Shinn as Shinn’s new play Teddy Ferrara opens at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.
After a lengthy hiatus, theatre blogging veteran Garrett Eisler returns to The Playgoer. Mr. Eisler says that, at least for now, he will be posting reviews every week or so; he begins with this evaluation of Broadway’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. All I can suggest is that he lay in a generous supply of Puffs.
To be more specific, Thomas Garvey is skeptical of “rigorous thinking” that is openly expected to be “positive.” Obviously any pre-determined outcome (or even tone, I’m afraid) compromises critical rigor to some degree. He also notes in dismay that Ms. Carl has begun repeating the phrase “personal attack” in a gently ominous way – a piece of linguistic code which, perhaps coincidentally, has become the mantra for deflecting critique of the unorthodox (ahem!) financial arrangements at the “non-profit” (note the quotes) American Repertory Theatre. Mr. Garvey is also skeptical of any explicit paid relationship between a producer and a critic – NOT, as he pointed out, in terms of internal dialogue and development, but rather when it comes to public announcements, articles, and postings. Inevitably, in such an arrangement, even “rigorous positive inquiry” can easily slide into something like ad copy written in academic jargon.
I’m skeptical myself, but for different reasons. I haven’t yet seen that any of these projects, from the National Critics Institute at the O’Neill Center to the increasing academic programs for arts critics to the Knight Foundation grants last year, have led to an improvement of the critical landscape, and I’m not sure that the HowlRound project promises this either. None of the great drama critics I’m aware of — from Bernard Shaw and George Jean Nathan to Jan Kott and Eric Bentley — came out of schools or institutions centered on the study of criticism. Those good critics who do come out of academia seem to have rather traditional liberal arts degrees.
Unfortunately the publicity and effort surrounding drama criticism is centered in building institutions rather than encouraging individual voices. What does it cost to start a blog and practice one’s craft? And what does it cost to cite examples of good criticism rather than build castles-in-the-air for budding critics?
And since Dr. Carl wants positive thinking, let me offer a constructive suggestion: that instead of validating things like Facebook and Twitter as the Great White Hopes of American drama criticism, it should be considered that this rigorous dialogue be conducted in public — and I do mean dialogue, which means the effort to respond intelligently and engage with the criticism and the critic, as well as the critic making the effort to engage with his or her readers; the give-and-take of practicing critics in a more public forum like the blogosphere, with its comments sections open to all and sundry, would certainly mean more to a general reading public and provide more of a test of one’s critical convictions and prejudices. Despite its status as a public blog or a journal, HowlRound seems an insular community to me, more a place for artists to exchange thoughts with each other rather than with a more general readership.
Facebook and Twitter may be fine for off-the-cuff comments or gossip, but criticism? I don’t see it — even if you follow the right feeds or like the right “Friends,” something which a general readership, out of the loop, is unlikely to do.
I think it’s worth noting that there is a larger trend developing here. There is no more available pay for critics in the press – but I think there WILL be pay available (to some degree) from the academy and the non-profit sector. I’ve written before that much of theatre is slowly becoming more and more about artists rather than their audience. Outfits like Carl’s – which are linked to academic programs turning out graduates, after all – will only accelerate this process. I think we’ll see more and more “critics” subtly switching allegiance from the audience to the writers and performers themselves.