The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future (13 page)

Adam Feldman:
All of us have a certain set of opinions that reflect our personal experience. Mine are affected by the fact that I am white, Jewish, gay, and middle-class. I was born in Canada, live in New York, and went to college. All those things, and many more, will affect my experience at the theater—but that doesn’t mean that my opinions are uniquely determined by a set of identity structures. If you want to be fair, you try to take the things that are only about yourself out of the evaluation. If I see an actress and I like her because she reminds me of my sister, that’s meaningless to the reader. You have to understand that when you’re processing it as a critic.

Dan Bacalzo:
I’m a gay Filipino-American male who has a PhD in performance studies. Does my background make a difference in the way that I see and evaluate every single thing? Of course not, but it could make a difference in the way that I see and evaluate some things. I guess everyone comes from a unique perspective, and it’s a matter of whether or not that perspective is worth listening to.

Linda Winer:
The fact that there’s only one African-American theater critic—Hilton Als at the
New Yorker
—matters. There are no Asians. There are no Hispanics. There’s a greater variety of perception when you have different kinds of people looking at things.

I was so spoiled by there being other female critics in Chicago. When I joined the New York Drama Critics’ Circle, it was virtually all men. If the
Post
hadn’t hired Elisabeth Vincentelli, I would still be the only first-string female theater critic in New York, which is shameful. There are more women’s voices now, but it’s been shocking and limiting. Being the only woman on the aisle didn’t make me feel special. It made me feel lonely.

We bring everything we are to the theater and to our reviews. There’s no way for me to know how much of what I perceive is molded by the things that I believe and the way that I was raised. Now that we have four or five strong-voiced female critics around, we don’t always agree, but we see things that men sometimes don’t see. When there are plays by women in which women are just sitting around talking, my colleagues historically have written reviews saying, “This wasn’t about anything,” while plays where men are just sitting around and talking are always profound and hilarious.

Michael Schulman:
There’s been a real effort lately to produce more work by female playwrights, and I think there should be an effort to have more female theater critics. I can think of just a few, like Alexis Soloski and Elisabeth Vincentelli. I can think of one African-American theater critic: Hilton Als. We need a variety of people writing reviews so there isn’t just one monolithic point of view in the critical world. If every critic is a well-off white guy, they’re going to sympathize with certain kinds of things. They’re going to be predisposed to like certain kinds of theater (whether consciously or not), and they’ll be blind to other things. I would love to see a female successor to Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood at some point.

A few years ago, when
Hair
was revived, Hilton Als pointed out that the black characters are not nearly as fleshed out as the white characters, and no one else pointed that out. He’s the one who would notice that kind of unconscious, institutionalized racism in a musical. Of course, you can’t have a widely diverse pool of theater critics if you don’t have a large pool of theater critics to begin with.

Michael Sommers:
One of the things that helped my career was the fact that I was fairly open about being gay. For Christ’s sake, I worked for the
New York Native
. When all those plays about homosexuality really started coming out in the 1970s and 1980s, I never had any problem writing about them.

Roma Torre:
There aren’t many married, straight female critics with children, so it’s possible that I bring a perspective that is relatively unique when I see a show. When my kids were young, I would bring them to see children’s shows and partially use them to determine if it was worth seeing or not.

Jesse Green:
I’m a little unusual among my colleagues for having kids. I think that informs my reaction to many things I see, if only in an unconscious way.

Peter Marks:
It’s kind of embarrassing that so many critics are white guys. There should be more women. There should be more reviewers of color. There should be more Asian and Latino reviewers. There should be more young critics because different generations have different perspectives.

Robert Feldberg:
You have your likes and dislikes and prejudices and influences, but a good critic will moderate all that and move to the middle. A man and a woman will have a different reaction. Depending on your sexual preference, you may have a different reaction. What you learn to do is moderate that and say, “This is something that’s strongly influencing me, but I’ve got to step back and lessen that particular influence.”

Ronni Reich:
I’ve found myself in positions where I’ve criticized a female character in a new play set in the present day for seeming really antiquated, and then I won’t see any criticism along those lines in the reviews written by male critics. I’ve seen other reviews where the critic was offended by the way that a character of color was portrayed but I didn’t think of that.

Terry Teachout:
H.L. Mencken said, “Criticism is prejudice made plausible.” It’s an exaggeration, but a very illuminating one. I write what I think. That’s what they pay me to do. I try very hard to write about the show that I’m seeing, rather than the one I’m expecting to see. I know I’m doing that because I am very frequently surprised by what I see. If I was never surprised, I would know something is wrong. There are certain things that I don’t like to see at the theater, like uncontrollable whimsy or propaganda. But when I say that, I’m not expressing a prejudice. I’m expressing a view of what makes art good or bad. There are things I’ll never like because I don’t think they’re any good.

Jason Zinoman:
I don’t believe there’s such a thing as perfect critical objectivity, but I do believe it’s important to aim for it—even without ever actually achieving it. To be a critic, you have to review musicals, plays of different styles, and experimental work, and you have to give all of them a fair shake. But the eccentric, idiosyncratic background that you bring to the table is a strength. That’s your critical voice. That’s why people want to read you.

MATT WINDMAN
: What makes you unique as a theater critic?

John Simon:
I hope I’m unique. It’s terrible if anybody is not unique. I’m glad that you’re asking that question because I assume it means that you think that I am unique, and I very much want to be that.

Marilyn Stasio:
I’ve never thought about it. I don’t care. I just do what I do, and I pay no attention to what other people are doing.

Peter Marks:
I think my value is as a communicator. I don’t think my judgment is particularly stellar. I respond emotionally to a lot of things, and maybe my heart rules over my head too much, but I feel like I can communicate the experience of immersing myself in a production with a level of informed judgment.

Elisabeth Vincentelli:
I’m interested in everything, and in the ways that everything connects together. My tastes in music probably also set me apart. For instance, I don’t know other theater critics that are interested in metal.

Helen Shaw:
The
Times
’ dance critic, Claudia La Rocco, and I are both interested in interdisciplinary performance and dance-infused physical performance. There aren’t a ton of mainstream critics who are interested in the really zany stuff.

Jeremy Gerard:
I was an Off-Broadway baby. I grew up going to the alternative theater of the 1960s and 1970s. That’s why I wrote a book about the American Place Theatre and the people I feel must not be forgotten. I have a real love for the outliers who make it possible for the theater to continue living and changing and growing. It provides a different kind of contextualizing that works to my benefit.

Leonard Jacobs:
Because I’m a historian and a dramaturg, I offer a perspective that most theater critics cannot. Most theater critics don’t understand all the composite parts of a theater experience. I think that’s a problem, and it’s a shame. It’s a real deficit in not only contemporary theater criticism, but in much of the criticism of previous generations.

Michael Musto:
I take a very personal approach to writing about theater. In my column, I can approach theater in a more subjective manner. I’m writing my deeply personal, impulsive reactions to shows—as opposed to writing a sort of measured review, the way you would have to do in the
Times
. It’s much more fun to do it my way. I can just go with my impulsive reactions and say outrageous things. Some people say my column is like a blog (even though it came out before there was such a thing as blogging).

Terry Teachout:
I’ve been making different kinds of art since I was born, and I think that makes a difference in how I write. It adds a respect for the craftsmanship of theater. Wilfrid Sheed once said that a critic should appreciate “the simple miracle of getting the curtain up every night.” I don’t think I’ve ever fallen victim to the sterile perfectionism that comes from people who haven’t gotten their hands dirty in the process of making art.

Charles Isherwood:
A lot of my fellow critics got into the business through musical theater. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I was not a passionate musical theater person. That’s not what sparked my passion and interest in theater. In some ways, I suppose that’s a handicap. But in other ways, it makes me more objective.

Richard Ouzounian:
When I came to theater criticism, I was already a successful director, writer, and artistic director. If I say a play is badly directed, I know that it was badly directed, and I know why. I have been, for that reason and many others, kind of a contentious critic over the past 15 years.

Rob Weinert-Kendt:
I have a broad perspective because I covered theater in L.A. for so long, and I work at
American Theatre
magazine, which covers theater all over the country. I have a broader knowledge of theater and a broader sense of what theater is, beyond just Broadway and Off-Broadway.

Zachary Stewart:
I’m considerably younger than most of my colleagues.

John Simon:
I have jokingly said that the
Guinness Book of World Records
people should take note that I’m the oldest person writing drama criticism who has done it uninterrupted for so many decades. I also write in a somewhat more learned style. I know certain things. I make allusions to things that mean something to me, but may not mean anything to young people, or even to other reviewers. I make references to things which the usual reviewer doesn’t know about, and which people can learn from. Many people have said to me that they don’t care much for my opinion, but that they’re very grateful for all the new words they’ve learned by reading me.

Michael Riedel:
I’m the last Broadway newspaper columnist. Back when there were a lot of newspapers, they all had Broadway columnists: the
Herald Tribune
, the
New York Times
, the
Journal-American
, the
New York Post
, the
Daily News
,
PM
. They all had theater columnists because Broadway was a big part of entertainment culture and New York City. There’s no
New York Times
theater column anymore. The
Daily News
never replaced me after I left.
Newsday
did away with its theater column several years ago. I’m not so sure the
Post
will hire someone else to be a Broadway columnist after I’m gone.

Michael Dale:
My complete lack of confidence in my opinions makes me unique.

Perez Hilton:
I’m not trying to be a theater critic. I’m just a theater fan sharing my thoughts with fellow theater fans on my blog. I went to NYU and studied acting. I’ve seen hundreds of shows. That doesn’t necessarily make me a theater critic, but it definitely makes me someone with a deep passion and understanding of the world of theater and entertainment.

Richard Zoglin:
I feel like I’m more of a populist. I’m usually much more receptive to the Disney musicals and things like that. I’m a little more in tune with the average audience member.

Don Aucoin:
I was a reporter, rather than a critic, for most of my career. I still think like a reporter. I still put a huge premium on clarity. That comes from having written about all kinds of subjects for the front page of the newspaper, where you need to make yourself as clear as possible, as quickly as possible.

David Cote:
I think I am well-regarded because I have more sympathy for the artistic process than some of my colleagues. I’m told that theater people—playwrights, directors, actors—respect my opinion, so that means something. Having worked for years Off Off Broadway doesn’t necessarily prepare me more than my colleagues, but I try to be more sympathetic to experimental theater or playwrights who are trying something different. If I’m distinctive at all, it’s been because I’m trying to be more of an advocate, holding big nonprofit theaters’ feet to the fire.

MATT WINDMAN
: How have you changed as a critic since you started writing?

Alexis Soloski:
My prose used to be more convoluted, though even now I still use too many adjectives. When I was in my early 20s, I felt like I had something to prove—that I knew a lot or that I “got it.” That eased off. If I don’t understand something now, I’m comfortable saying so. I’m also comfortable with not always getting things right or admitting that I was wrong.

Michael Dale:
I used to try to write about every actor in a show and every element of a production. I don’t think that’s necessary anymore. If something stands out, I’ll write about it.

Linda Winer:
I don’t think I’ve changed that much. When I go back and read clips from when I was a zygote, I recognize the voice. I know who she is. I’d like to think I’ve gotten better. But since I now write such short reviews, it’s hard to know for sure.