Some Thoughts On Critics (3)

3. Embedded. How connected can a reviewer be before they compromise themselves? How much of a relationship can we tolerate between artists and critics?  

The NYTimes has very very strict guidelines about all of this stuff.  They spiked a review of my play In Publicbecause Rob Kendt and playwright George Hunka were both bloggers who had, on occasion, corresponded (just to be clear, Rob and I had at that point neither met nor e-mailed, we met for the first time that night, and CoM was founded much much later).  While on the hand, Martin Denton, who heads NYTheatre.com both publishes and reviews plays by people who also write for the site.  

So the question becomes... which model is better?  I guess honestly... I think it's healthy that there's a wide spectrum of level-of-interaction between artists and various reviewing outlets.  NYTheatre.com is really far over on one side of the spectrum (in ways that do, in case you're wondering, occasionally make me uncomfortable) while the Times is waaaaaay on the other side. In between, you have reviewers like David Cote (who has-- for example-- both worked on and reviewed Richard Foreman's plays and who is a budding librettist), Alexis Soloski (who dramaturged for Alex Timbers while on staff as a reviewer at the Voice) and so on and so forth.  Reviewers have different levels of connections to theatre in New York. I think this is a good thing. It creates a more vibrant and prismatic view on the scene. 

I recently read the very excellent book Rip It Up And Start Again, which chronicles post-punk and new-pop from 1978-1984 (roughly it charts the journey from Public Image Ltd. to Duran Duran over the course of its 400 pages).  One of the most interesting things about the book is its portrait of the music press during that time. Basically, the reviewers were not only reviewers but fierce advocates for music they believed in.  "Some critics actually [played] a part in shaping and directing the culture," Simon Reynolds writes. Critics took on a more activist role, "articulating the unwritten manifestos of these fledgling movements and city-based scenes" as a way of intensifying and accelerating the music's success. "Musicians and journalists fraternized a lot during that period, a kinship related perhaps to a sense of solidarity as comrades in the culture war of postpunk versus Old Wave... roles shifted around. Some journalists played in bands or made records and there were musicians who wrote criticism, such as Pere Ubu's David Thomas... Joy Division's Steven Morris, and Manicured Noise's Steve Walsh... the gap between those who `did' and those who commente wasn't nearly as wide as in the pre-punk era."

It would be naive in the extreme to say that such an approach applied the theatre would have only upsides.  There would be huge problems, of course. Amongst them would be the intensely social nature of theatre. I was wondering out loud to a friend about why the NYTimes Book Review section had novelists writing reviews but outside of NYtheatre, playwrights by and large don't review in the papers.  And the conclusion we came to is that the dense interrelated socialness of theatre makes this nearly impossible. You could be in a band and write a review of another band. If you didnt' like them, you might never have to work with them, you're in your own self-contained unit, they're in theirs. Similarly, novelists are largely solitary animals. Theatre is a collaborative art from made largely out of ad-hoc coalitions often formed without the explicit approval of all members. An actor who gave a negative review to a fellow actor could find herself acting in the same show as them, for example.  So yes, such an approach would have its downsides... But it's worth saying that this Active Criticism movement in England did also correspond with on of the most exciting times in the history of rock.  The two are (to some extent) interrelated.

Comments

[Aaron Grunfeld]

For me, there's no question: a critic must be actively engaged with the culture you're covering. Arts journalism is more than just sitting in a dark auditorium: it's interviews, photo spreads, boosterism & even rumor-mongering. To do these things requires engagement. Novelists may be solitary animals, but journalists can't & shouldn't be. We're part of the foment.

Your last, intelligent paragraph conflates arts coverage with reviewing. Artists can also pen manifestos & thought pieces (as you do here), conduct interviews (like Adam Szymkowicz's wonderful blog series), hash out arguments & respond to audiences (like Mike Daisey's periodic riposts to critics), publish histories (like Brit Simon Callow on Orson Welles).

[Anonymous]

"My play In Public?"

[isaac]

It was easier/faster to say than "The play In Public which I directed". I certainly meant to sense of ownership over the script as a property, but the production was mine, as it was the actors and the designers and George's. I would have no problem with Abe Goldfarb, who was in it, saying that it was his.

Also, five words later in the same sentence I identified the playwright of the play by full name. I think it's pretty clear.

[Anonymous]

Easier and faster; revealing and presumptive too. Looking forward to revivals of Isaac Butler's Waiting for Godot, Isaac Butler's Oklahoma!, Isaac Butler's The Odd Couple and of course Isaac Butler's MilkMilkLemonade.

[James]

Oh, lighten up, George (or is it Marilyn?). It's perfectly acceptable for directors to refer to shows they've directed as "their play."

[Anonymous]

Neither. But thanks for making an additional presumption.

[isaac]

You know, I could probably settle this dispute between James and Anonymous. Commenters do leave IP addresses, even when anonymous. I could check the IP address if that would give ANON satisfaction.

Seriously tho, I'm done talking about this. This is bullshit. When an actor gives someone a postcard for a show they're working on (or sends out an e-mail) they say "PLEASE COME SEE MY SHOW". It's extremely clear in the post that that's the spirit in which the sentence-- which also identifies the playwright by name-- is meant.

And if it's not clear in the post, this absurd comment thread has made it doubly clear. If Anonymous wants to intentionally misunderstand what I wrote to get his or her knickers in a twist, that's up to him. Or her.

Moving on... What level of involvement between critic and artist is appropriate?

[Duncan]

This is something I've been struggling with for some time, as a theatre reviewer who is also an emerging playwright. I try to avoid plays that have friends of mine involved either as performers or writers (and if I get accepted into a festival such as MITF or Planet Connections, I won't review anything else in the fest), but then when I see a very talented performer, I would most likely want to work with that person in future... but if I do, I then can't review them anymore, since I have a personal connection. I've been considering leaving my post as a critic, because these days I just know too damn many people.

I think it's valid to have a playwright review plays- I certainly have more experience than most regarding what makes a play "work". And there are a number of playwrights who've also reviewed.

[SashaNaomi]

Actually, writers are a wee bit more social than you think- workshops, etc., but it doesn't have to get in the way of reviewing. Actors really can't do reviews because, well, pretty much the nature of their craft is lying. If they take on the role of critic, it seems like pretty much that- just another role. Playwrights, however, should and I think do review each other.

[Jack Worthing]

The punk parallel seems flawed. Everything was about the culture war: DIY, fuck-the-rules, fuck class, fuck everything. Saying something made it so. Sid Vicious was a bassist who couldn't play bass. It was all necessary reaction to the Old Wave, sure, and it produced some great music, but it was a one-off, and the best musicians (The Clash, for starters) realised it was a pretty dangerous way to keep living. Expertise matters. So do ethics. Ignore them for too long and everything becomes devalued.

Kenneth Tynan was very much 'of' London theatre when he wrote for the Observer. He knew his brief back-to-front. He was passionate advocate for work he believed in. (Cf. his defence of Brecht and his role in the destruction of the Lord Chamberlain.) But when he crossed the line INTO the profession (librettist, Olivier's dramaturg at the National) he stopped reviewing plays. It seems to be the only proper thing to do.

Choose to be a professional critic, or don't. Even though I often disagree with them, I'll take Brantley or Michael Billington over that hack Martin Denton (for example) any day of the week. Denton's mission is admirable, but he's ruined it with the appearance of nepotism and incest.

Duncan, above, has the right idea. Be passionate. But for God's sake avoid bias. There's a difference.

[Sean]

Isaac, if it's any consolation, as a producer you actually *own* the production, and I still have a hard time talking about the shows as if they're "mine". They really belong to the creative staff and, ultimately, the playwright and the director share ownership of the *production* more than any other single person.

By the way, you've been on fire lately. I got a call from Mac Rogers last night and we spent about five minutes quoting your blog and cracking each other up. Really great stuff here, really smart.

As to the question, we're moving further and further away from the necessity of a blinded, balance-holding judge and closer to advocacy every year, when it comes to theater criticism. It occurred to me during our run of "Viral" that we were getting great pull quotes from bloggers and online sites... but that it didn't *matter* because we didn't need to waste money pulling quotes and advertising them. Everyone was reading the source material anyway, and it was the voice of the advocates who gave the clearest picture of what the play is.

It doesn't matter whether we think the balanced adjudicator is necessary or not, they are slowly becoming useless.

[freeman]

There was totally no hair-pulling in the thread above, and I'm disappointed.

[malachy walsh]

One thing to note... the "new journalism" of the 60s resulted in some pretty interesting and insightful writing about the subjects of any given article - think HELLS ANGELS, FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST, DISPATCHES and so forth.

Not all of the philosophical implications of blurring the line between writer and subject are good. "Facts" become truly colored by the trajectory the "reporter" is taking on any particular story. However, Errol Morris' THIN BLUE LINE is pretty good filmic exploration of how that happens even in the supposedly most objective investigations.

Anyway, even if the journalist wasn't literally/physically embedded in the world he/she was covering, they were psychologically embedded in the story. It made for more interesting reading, better coverage and more to talk about. And thumbnail looks at subjects like art in the THE PAINTED WORD were critically-minded explorations.

And much more dynamic for all involved.