The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future (26 page)

Linda Winer:
I’ve never changed the way I write to suit the different papers I’ve written for. But for the most part, I write for a mass audience that might love the theater. I used to think that I was writing for my mother, who was an intelligent, undereducated woman. My instinct is to not overestimate a reader’s information or underestimate his or her intelligence. I think I’m writing for someone who is intelligent but is not a specialist. It would be great if what I write is helpful or sounds right to the specialists, but I’m a newspaper journeyman. There’s a lot of wonderful writing about theater on the Internet, but it’s really meant for other theater people. With a general newspaper, you have the opportunity in your first couple sentences to ensnare, to interest, to seduce someone who may not be interested in reading about the play you’re writing about. But if you can do that, you may have turned on a tiny bit of light in somebody for the theater.

Eric Grode:
Even though the
Sun
was a right-wing publication, I never felt the slightest pressure about that. I wrote one of the more favorable reviews of
My Name Is Rachel Corrie
. If you assume that the
Sun
was going to adhere to its political stance from top to bottom, it wasn’t the kind of review you’d expect to see in that paper.

Peter Marks:
I think the
Washington Post
reader ranges from someone who goes very often to the regional theaters in D.C. to someone who goes almost never goes to the theater, and I try to write to the middle of that demographic. I don’t want to make it so highfalutin that I lose the people who are only interested in the question of whether or not they should go to the show, and I try to write with enough depth for the people who go to the theater a lot.

I write for a very smart readership. The self-selected readership of theater reviews is automatically very high. They tend to be fairly intelligent people. I’m not saying that everyone who goes to the theater is a genius, but you’re dealing with a largely college-educated readership. They’re people who value culture and the arts. I have not detected much of a difference in terms of the readership of the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
.

Robert Feldberg:
The readership of the
Record
is very diverse. With any general-interest newspaper, you have people who go to the theater a lot and are familiar with it, and then you have people who never go to the theater. Writers form a sense in their head of the general audience they’re writing for. You instinctively use certain words instead of other words. You realize that if you mention a show other than the one you’re writing about, maybe you should write a sentence or two explaining what that other show is. You should not leave a hole in the story for the general audience.

Ronni Reich:
I think the
Star-Ledger
audience is generally very well-informed about theater and very enthusiastic about it. I get emails and phone calls fairly regularly, and I see full houses at shows. I think they have an appetite for variety and a pretty good understanding of what high production values look like, though they can also appreciate something on a smaller scale. It’s an audience that spans generations and media, from the print to the online version.

Terry Teachout:
At the
Wall Street Journal
, it’s an educated audience of laypeople who are interested in theater, both as something to see and as part of the larger world of art and culture. I don’t write for theater professionals. Presumably, some of them read what I write, but they’re not my audience, so I avoid inside baseball. As a journalist would say, I write in English. I don’t use jargon. I explain what I’m writing. I don’t assume that the people who read my column know as much about theater as a theater professional would. I’m not writing about lighting plots—though I will mention lighting if it’s material. When you’re writing about the artistic impression of a theater production, you’re saying things that ideally ought to make the same kind of sense to professionals as to laypeople.

Thom Geier:
I think
Entertainment Weekly
’s median age is somewhere in the thirties. It’s about 60 percent female and 40 percent male. We hear from our readers, even outside of New York, that they want more theater coverage, which is kind of surprising. We get theater ads for both the online and print editions, so there definitely seems to be a healthy appetite for it.

Jason Zinoman:
The
Times
has a broad audience. It’s not the same audience I speak to on
Twitter
. At
Time Out
, you could write something and be ignored. With the
Times
, you’re speaking to a much larger audience.

David Rooney:
The big frustration for anyone who writes for a business paper like
Variety
is the question of whether a consumer audience is reading your work, but there is something gratifying about writing for the industry. You know that every producer, Broadway director, artistic programmer, and senior publicist is reading your article.

Marilyn Stasio:
I don’t write for a consumer audience. At
Variety
, I’m writing reviews for the guy in Dallas who’s running a theater with two stages to book. A vivid review can help him find a show that his subscription audience would like to see. A good trade review can introduce him to a playwright, designer, performer, or director he might want to hire.

Steven Suskin:
Variety
has a certain slant. You’re writing for the business, trying to encapsulate what they need to know in terms of a show’s business prospects.
Variety
wants a punchy paragraph upfront. You should be able to read the first and last paragraph and get the overall opinion. With the
Huffington Post
, I can take an aspect of the show that I think is important and use that to give an impression of the entire show.

Frank Scheck:
The
Hollywood Reporter
is a trade publication geared to the industry. The
New York Post
is more of a general-population newspaper, so your style has to be breezier and more accessible.

Jeremy Gerard:
There’s a big difference between writing for the industry and general readers. At
Deadline.com
, I’m conscious of writing for the industry, which is a challenge because most of the people who are reading my articles know as much about, or maybe even more about, the subject than I do.

MATT WINDMAN
: To what extent do you direct your reviews towards actors, playwrights, directors, and other theater professionals?

Michael Dale:
Not at all. I’m describing the experience of seeing the show to potential ticket buyers.

Zachary Stewart:
I write for the ticket buyer, but I hope that my words can be helpful to theater makers, whether through providing honest feedback or with a professional recommendation.

John Lahr:
Reviewers write for their audience. Critics write for the artist. A playwright, generally speaking, doesn’t know the meaning of his play. He knows the effects, feelings, or ideas that he’s going for, but he can’t articulate them. That’s what a critic is trying to do.

Robert Faires:
I suspect that a large part of my audience at the
Chronicle
is made up of people who make theater. Actors, directors, and designers will be the first ones to comment about something they’ve read of mine.

Adam Feldman:
Critics aren’t writing their reviews for the artists. By the time we see the show, it’s frozen. Nothing we say, no matter how kind or constructive, is going to help the show. We’re not the show’s dramaturgs. We’re not the show’s producers. We’re not the show’s directors. We are writing for our readers. If the creators want to eavesdrop on that conversation, that’s their prerogative. Some of them do, and some of them don’t, but they are not specifically part of that conversation. They’re not the intended audience for that communication.

David Cote:
I like to think that theater professionals read my reviews.

Alexis Soloski:
I think the critic remains in dialogue with the artists, even though lot of artists have learned not to read reviews, or to have someone they trust read the reviews for them and distill any important information. I don’t imagine that Audra McDonald is rushing to the red
Village Voice
box on the sidewalk, desperate to see what I have to say, but I do presume that there’s a dialogue.

Elisabeth Vincentelli:
I try to write something that’s constructive for the creative team, especially if I didn’t like the show.

Peter Marks:
It drives a lot of people in the theater crazy when I say that I don’t write my reviews for theater people.

MATT WINDMAN
: What kind of feedback do you receive from your readers?

Christine Dolen:
Maybe some critics get a ton of feedback, but I rarely get any, and I’m not quite sure why. Occasionally, a reader will be outraged by something and write a letter to the editor. I suspect that the artists feel that this is a long, ongoing relationship, so it’s better to say nothing if they are unhappy with something I write. I wish they didn’t feel that way, but I think that’s the case.

John Simon:
I’m always happiest when there is some kind of response. But more often than not, there isn’t any. I enjoy the violent attacks as much as praise. Most of the attacks on me are totally illiterate and perfectly good for laughing at.

Zachary Stewart:
I rarely receive any feedback, but I’m always delighted when I do—even negative feedback. It shows me that people are reading and emotionally and intellectually engaging with my criticism, which makes the work feel worth it.

Michael Dale:
When I do get feedback, it’s usually from those who disagree. Often passionately. The worst was getting an email from the mother of Rachel Corrie, the activist who was run over by an Israeli tank, who didn’t care for my negative review of
My Name Is Rachel Corrie
.

Howard Shapiro:
Readers at the
Inquirer
had no compunction about sitting down and writing nasty stuff to me. A lot of people were nice, too. Unfortunately, it’s the nasty ones that I remember more.

Michael Musto:
Pieces about Broadway don’t tend to burn up the charts. Something about Kyle Dean Massey being the replacement in
Pippin
does fine, but even the show’s publicist knows it’s not going to set the world on fire. It’s a local story. People want something with more of an international flavor to it. If you write about Daniel Radcliffe or James Franco or Denzel Washington, people will take notice.

Ben Brantley:
If it’s a high-profile review, like if it has a movie star, people respond. I get hate mail. I get love mail. It’s almost entirely by email now because people can just click on my byline and send words of cursing or encouragement. If they’re really hostile or insane-sounding, I don’t linger on them. If they’re more measured, I try to answer them, whether they agree with me or not. Some of them are very intelligent and make fascinating points.

Robert Faires:
There are communities where the theater critics have enough interaction with the audience that it’s a give-and-take conversation, but I rarely hear from my audience. Maybe it’s because I’m not a critic who pushes a lot of buttons or says controversial things.

Charles Isherwood:
It varies. I can write three or four reviews and get no responses from readers because I’m writing about shows that nobody really cares about. I’ll get a much stronger response with other shows. I do go through the emails and respond to the ones that are not just sheer vituperation, but sometimes I’ll respond to those, too.

Jesse Green:
Occasionally, I’ll get a few comments, often from cranks or people who want to point out an error. If you go by the comments on the website, what readers apparently want is for me to disappear, die, or have a stick shoved up my ass. Those are real suggestions that have been made. Rarely does anyone bother to make a positive comment, which is fine.

I do get feedback from the productions themselves, usually through press agents. They will be pretty frank about how the people involved have taken a review. I have been happiest when, after I have panned a show, the press agent tells me how much they loved the review. I find that quite delicious because the press agents are the ones who know what’s really going on. They may have to flack something that’s bad, but they know if it’s bad.

Chris Jones:
I get all kinds of feedback. It’s all by email, except for the elderly, who often send me long, handwritten letters of contempt or admiration. People love to compare what I thought with what they thought. If they think I got something wrong, they’ll tell me about it. The people you review usually don’t call and complain, but sometimes they do. There are certain theater people who respond passionately to everything, and that includes your review of their work.

Gordon Cox:
You get a lot of “I agree” or “I disagree,” and that’s about it.

David Cote:
I tend to hear more from people who enjoy my work. The people who didn’t enjoy it or agree with me probably won’t tell me, which is perfectly reasonable. I do post my reviews online, and sometimes there’ll be spirited discussions from people who disagree with my opinion. I think that’s an important part of the process. A big part of the function we serve now as critics is to start such a conversation and spur people into thinking and articulating their reactions to works of art.

Frank Scheck:
Usually, the only people you hear from are disgruntled. You may hear from someone if you’ve made some mistake. On rare occasion, I’ll get a nasty contact from someone I’ve panned. I’ll also get the occasional thank you note, which is sweet but completely unnecessary.

Elisabeth Vincentelli:
I learned the hard way that you have to be really careful when you write about a child actor. Anything even remotely resembling criticism will be interpreted as you being a total child hater. I once wrote about a child performer in
The People in the Picture
, a horrible musical at the Roundabout with Donna Murphy. I wrote something along the lines of, “That child was irritating,” and I got a lot of emails about it. Neil LaBute wrote to me a few years ago. He’s known for writing to critics. We had a very constructive email exchange. That’s not going to make me be any nicer to his next project, or any meaner, but it was very interesting.