The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future (14 page)

Leonard Jacobs:
For a long time, I was self-consciously clever. Cleverness should be organic and not conscious. In other words, you shouldn’t strain to be clever. Younger critics have a tendency to show off their knowledge. I think that my work has evolved to the point where I feel comfortable and secure with my own knowledge. Cultivating your own voice as a writer is a long process. I don’t think I reached a place where I felt clear about my voice until the last couple of years.

John Simon:
Anyone that reads me regularly is in a much better position to decide how I’ve changed. To yourself, you’re always the same person. You look in the mirror: you have less hair than you used to, and there are lines on your face, but you sort of take all of that for granted. You don’t think, Once upon a time, I was a handsome youth, and now I’m a decrepit cretin. One looks in the mirror and is still the same person. There are some ways in which my writing has gotten better—possibly because it’s less authoritarian, less flashy, and less effect-driven. But on the whole, it’s still the same person writing. When I read something that I wrote 30 years ago, I don’t feel like it was written by a different person.

Michael Schulman:
I now write with more ease. I have a more relaxed voice on the page. I’m not analyzing every single sentence. I also have a much better handle on certain writers, certain actors, and certain institutions because I’ve seen a lot more of their work.

Terry Teachout:
I know more simply by virtue of having seen a lot more plays, but I don’t think the point of view that I bring to that knowledge has changed very much. I’m middle-aged and have worked as a professional critic for 30 years, so I don’t think it’s likely that what I do will evolve very much. If anything is changing me, it’s the fact that I’m now also working as a theater professional.

Ben Brantley:
When I started at the
Times
, I hadn’t been a professional theater critic before. Suddenly, I was on one of the most conspicuous platforms in the world in which to be a theater critic. I was very conscious of not wanting to make any kind of mistake. I did a whole lot of research for every single thing. I still do research, but not to the same degree.

Jeremy Gerard:
I’ve learned how to write short. That’s slightly facetious, but it’s true.

Robert Faires:
The younger me seems to have been a little more casual in the way he writes. Maybe I’ve gotten more formal as I’ve gotten older. I hope I’ve become a better writer. I work at being descriptive in a way that connects with a reader, where I can say more about the human condition, or what I’ve learned as a human being.

Jesse Oxfeld:
One thing I became aware of was how much I grew to resent a really bad show. There were some shows that just shouldn’t have been put up in the first place. The fact that I had been made to spend three hours sitting through this bad thing would make me angry and resentful. That probably showed up in the writing, which may not have been entirely fair.

Peter Filichia:
When I started out in my twenties, I was a terribly severe critic. Just like all the other critics, I was marking incompetence and making fun of names. After a while, that just didn’t appeal to me anymore. I realized that it wasn’t doing any good. I was very influenced by an article in the
Times
in 1973 about the musical
Seesaw
and all the troubles it had out of town. Michael Bennett had to come in and save it. When Joseph Kipness, its producer, called Bennett up, he said, “Whenever a Broadway musical dies, Broadway dies a little with it.” That was profoundly changing for me because I had assumed there were no repercussions when a show closed. Kipness reminded me that every failure leads to less theater.

Roma Torre:
I’ve gotten tougher over the years. I’m not quite as forgiving as I used to be. I used to beat around the bush because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. It was partly because I’ve been in that position. I did a lot of theater when I was younger. I’ve been on the rude end of a review, and it stings badly. Over the years, I realized that there’s no point in pulling my punches. I used to be a lot more lenient about a performance that wasn’t quite as successful as it should have been.

Michael Riedel:
My writing has become less nasty and more playful. It’s easy when you’re young to think everybody’s up to no good, and that you’re going to expose them, ridicule them, and tear them down. But as you get older, you realize that loads of people in the theater are not trying to put on bad plays. They are doing the best work they can. Sometimes they succeed, and I celebrate it. Sometimes they fail, and I make fun of it. But I don’t think it’s a crime against humanity to put on a bad play, as I once did when I was young, aggressive, and obnoxious. Also, I make fun of myself more now than it used to. I just don’t take myself seriously, and I really don’t take the theater that seriously.

Michael Musto:
I’ve become a little more humane. I still have quite an edge and a sharp tongue, but I’m a lot more forgiving now. In the old days, I was ballistic if a show didn’t rub me the right way. As you get older, there are more things you can appreciate. Not everything seems old-fogeyish or boring—even if they’re doing the eight-millionth version of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical you first saw as a kid.

Richard Zoglin:
I’ve gotten surer of my opinions. There are certain kinds of plays I just do not like. There’s a certain kind of New York relationship play that I see over and over again. I have little patience for it, and I’m now more outspoken in saying that. Earlier on, I would have been more careful about that because most of those plays get good reviews, and I didn’t want to look like a dummy. When you start out, you think that there’s a right opinion and a wrong opinion. But as you go on, you realize that everybody’s opinions are equal. That said, sometimes it still bothers me when I like something that everybody else hates.

Frank Scheck:
When I was younger, I was more tempted to be overly sarcastic. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more tempered. But if you’re writing for a paper like the
Post
, which likes a certain degree of sauciness, you have to keep them happy as well.

Adam Feldman:
I’m probably a bit more mindful now of avoiding unnecessary cruelty. I try to save my fire. There’s a bit of violence in some of my earlier writing that now looks a little arrogant in retrospect—not that I don’t still indulge in it sometimes.

Thom Geier:
I’ve gotten a little kinder. I don’t think I have as much cruelty in me anymore. Over time, I’ve come to realize what a miracle it is to get any production mounted. Even productions that fall short of their ambitions are still achievements.

Peter Marks:
I now notice more of the subtlety of what’s going on. In some ways, that makes writing harder. I used to give more of a definitive yes or no, and I’ve learned over time that a lot of things are “maybe” and “sort of,” and you have to be able to express that in a way that’s clear.

Chris Jones:
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less excited by some things. You might say I’ve become more cynical. When you’re very young and you see something great, you find it peerless. When you’re older, you don’t find it so peerless. You’ve been there before, and you have a sense that you will be there again, so you become more sober. I’ve also come to greatly value truth, which I don’t think I fully understood when I was young. When I go to the theater, I want things to feel true in some way, and I find myself very resistant to anything that feels untrue. I want things to be real—to have truth and integrity.

Elysa Gardner:
When I got the job, I hadn’t written professionally about theater before, so there was a lot of on-the-job learning. The first play I reviewed was Eugene O’Neill’s
A Moon for the Misbegotten
, and I thought, Why couldn’t they have given me a Neil Simon play? You evolve as a writer in the same way that you evolve as a person: you see more, you learn more, you take in more, you have different experiences, you become familiar with more work, and you become familiar with different interpretations of work.

Howard Shapiro:
It doesn’t make my criticism any different, but I’ve become more aware of how the business works. That helps me understand why actors might do a show just to qualify for Equity healthcare.

Robert Feldberg:
Over time, you gain the means to compare things from show to show, which is an important part of what a critic does. You get to know the work of individual directors, writers, and actors. You learn what’s possible in the theater.

John Lahr:
I’m in psychoanalysis. I’ve changed and gotten deeper as a person, so therefore my criticism has changed.

MATT WINDMAN
: Can a critic also work in the theater as an actor, playwright, director, producer, or dramaturg?

Michael Dale:
It certainly has been done, and I’m sure that those who do have certain issues to contend with.

Zachary Stewart:
Definitely. In fact, it is better if a critic has actually practiced the craft he is criticizing.

John Simon:
If a critic writes an occasional play, that’s one thing. But if a regular playwright were to become an important critic, that would be a whole other ballgame, and that would not work. If Ben Brantley were also a playwright, his absurdities would be less tolerated. At least now one assumes that he has no special interests that support his critical sense.

Thom Geier:
Having personal relationships with people in the industry you’re covering complicates how you cover that industry—but that’s not to say that it can’t be done.

Rob Weinert-Kendt:
The
New York Times Book Review
is full of authors reviewing other authors. I don’t know if we’ll ever have that model, where playwrights are reviewing other playwrights, but I would love to see the walls break down a bit. Of course, criticism is really not a way for a theater professional to get ahead. It can actually be really detrimental to a theater career to write reviews.

Michael Riedel:
In the old days, critics also worked in the theater. George S. Kaufman was the theater editor of the
New York Times
, and he was writing Broadway shows at the same time. The ethical lines that people abide by now are relatively new in journalism. Back in the day, people were crossing and jumping over the line all the time.

In this day and age, I don’t think you can do only one thing. If you’re in the media business, you have to be a writer and a broadcaster, and you have to be comfortable on television and radio. There’s a long tradition of theater columnists being media personalities. Dorothy Kilgallen was a panelist on
What’s My Line?
. Alexander Woollcott appeared in
The Man Who Came to Dinner
at the Bucks County Playhouse. It’s all part of the fun. I love performing. I’m a total ham. Of course, I have a limited range as an actor. I’m mainly restricted to playing myself—but I do a very good job of playing myself. I do a lot of things. I’m on
Theater Talk
. I have a regular radio gig on
Imus in the Morning
. I do a lot of work for the radio station WABC. I was on the TV series
Smash
. I give lectures. I’m working on a book.

Michael Sommers:
It’s hard for a critic to be a playwright or do something creative in the theater. If you’re doing your job right as a critic, people in the theater will hate you. In any event, I couldn’t write a play or even a longer piece of fiction now. My critical sense is so developed that I couldn’t really free myself up enough to do that. But in this new world, where you can’t make a living as a drama critic anymore, you have to do other things. I just don’t know how you can juggle it. I’m no good for anything but this. There’s a playwright (who I won’t mention by name) who has gotten plays produced and also operates as a critic. They’re rather dull plays (if I may say so), but that’s his problem.

Roma Torre:
I think one can inform the other. Truffaut was both a film critic and a brilliant filmmaker. George Bernard Shaw was a theater critic, and he wrote great plays.

Charles Isherwood:
Some people try to pursue both. It used to be easier in the old days when you had George S. Kaufman, who could do both, and Harold Clurman, who was doing everything.

John Lahr:
Tom Stoppard began as a critic, and so did William Inge. There are lots of people who start from the outside and work their way in.

Matthew Murray:
Walter Kerr and his wife worked in the theater. Terry Teachout is a playwright and his work has been produced in town.

Chris Jones:
I haven’t figured out how I could do it in a way that would make me comfortable. A critic, to some degree, needs authority. And the moment you do a lousy show yourself, your ability to judge the work of others is compromised. Criticism is a funny business. It is part of the artistic process, but it’s also entirely separate from it. It requires you, to some degree, to give up on your own creativity. Some critics, over the years, have found that very hard to do. But the moment you start writing plays yourself, you’re in a compromised situation—or at least there’s the danger of that.

Ben Brantley:
I think you can’t. I’m kind of a purist in that sense. If you did that, you’d want to promote what you do in your capacity as a theater person. You wouldn’t want to alienate certain people. On the other hand, there are some people who really can do both, who can work with someone on one project and then give them a bad review in another context, and it won’t be personal. I’m just very uneasy with that.

Peter Filichia:
I think it should be mandatory. It’s very healthy for a critic to try to write a play, or work on a show, and see how that works out.

Alexis Soloski:
I don’t have the stomach for it. To me, it feels too tricky ethically. That said, when Project Shaw puts on a staged reading of a Shaw play with a cast of critics, I’ll take part in it. If I get to sit anonymously in the dark and judge people on their performances, it’s really only fair to turn the tables every now and then.