The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future (5 page)

Frank Scheck:
John Simon has always been a favorite of mine. He can be way over-the-top and vindictive and nasty, but he’s so entertaining and brilliant. He’s so much fun to read that I can’t resist it.

Michael Sommers:
It still gives me a little thrill to see John Simon stomp into a theater.

Michael Riedel:
I’ve always thought that John Simon, in his heyday, was the best. His brutal putdowns of shows were always fun.

Jesse Green:
I grew up reading John Simon in
New York
magazine. That’s part of the reason I took the job. I was horrified by the hatefulness of his reviews, but he was a stylish and obviously intelligent writer.

Matthew Murray:
John Simon was erudite and willing to say anything and everything he wanted about anyone. He got a not-entirely-undeserved rap for being hard on people. I’m not sure there’s ever been anyone with a more scalpel-edged view of theater and method of reportage than he.

Terry Teachout:
I’ve known John Simon since I came to New York, and I truly admire him. He’s the senior critic in town. I don’t always agree with him—in fact, I frequently don’t agree with him—but he knows more than I’ll ever know. And if you don’t respect that kind of knowledge, you need to be taught a lesson in why you should.

Elisabeth Vincentelli:
I’m ambivalent about John Simon. He’s such a great stylist and writer, but his meanness is just too much. It was delicious to read, but sometimes it got in the way of his critical acumen, and that kind of spoiled the pleasure of reading him. I didn’t feel like there was any generosity behind it. He often wrote about very real issues that nobody else would touch—the stuff that’s very tricky to deal with—but he wrote about it with such a lack of empathy.

Robert Faires:
Benedict Nightingale influenced me very early on. There was a period when he left England and spent a year writing in New York. Out of that, he produced a book called
Fifth Row Center
, about not being in his home country and trying to understand theater from a different perspective. It really struck a personal chord with me. I had a sense of both the work he had seen and of his personal journey through that work. I can’t say I’ve stayed on top of his work throughout the years, but I do find myself going back to that book periodically, reading passages from it, and finding it very inspiring.

MATT WINDMAN:
Is there any kind of difference between the titles of theater critic and theater reviewer?

Jeremy Gerard:
It’s just semantic bullshit.

Zachary Stewart:
While the former title suggests an effort to critique a work within the context of theatrical tradition and the latter suggests something closer to a consumer report, it actually really depends on the branding of the publication (with critic connoting something more highbrow).

John Simon:
This is something I’ve always been fairly fastidious about. Reviewers—either because it’s their kind of mentality, or because it’s the kind of job they have, and it’s what is expected of them—manage to like a whole lot of pretty cheesy, wretched things. It may be purely to stay at their jobs. The
Daily News
, or perhaps even the
Times
, couldn’t stand to give as many bad reviews for so many things that a true critic would have to give.

Elizabeth Vincentelli:
Some people say the reviewer is more of a consumer guide. They see the reviewer as having a lesser status than the critic, who’s highbrow. I think that’s very self-serving—as is so much in theater. It’s bullshit.

David Cote:
A review gives a quick impression of what the show is. It is written under greater time constraints, and probably with less intellectual energy expended and less context. The critic writes longer, and isn’t concerned with spoiling elements of the plot. There’s more space in criticism, but that doesn’t necessarily make it more valuable or insightful than a review. I write reviews, but there’s criticism embedded in the review.

Michael Dale:
I think we mostly use the term critic because it’s short and sweet, but reviewer is probably more accurate. Critic implies that the writer is offering a complete analysis of every aspect of the production. But given the limitations of time and space, that’s impossible to do on a regular basis. Reviewer implies that you’re simply giving an overview of what you saw.

Steve Suskin:
A theater critic isn’t so much concerned about the plot as a show’s value and what it’s like. Walter Kerr was a critic. John Chapman and Burns Mantle of the
Daily News
were reporters. They were giving reports to their readers. They weren’t giving keen, analytical viewpoints. The question being asked was, “Should you see it or not?” The theater reviewer is really a theater reporter. A reporter covers the show and tells you what it’s about and who’s in it.

Don Aucoin:
I respond directly to the work in front of me and spread the word to my readers as quickly as possible. Whether that makes me a reviewer or a critic is not important to me.

Helen Shaw:
A reviewer writes about something that is still open and includes a directive of “go” or “don’t go” to the show. Criticism is what happens as soon as the show has become history. If you find yourself writing about a production that you saw last year, which no one will ever have a chance to see again, that’s
de facto
criticism. I am a reviewer who wants to be a critic. I hope my writing will be useful after the show has closed, but I also want to issue an invitation to people to come and be changed by whatever the show is.

Howard Shapiro:
Some people say that you can’t write a piece of criticism with only 500 words, but I don’t really see any difference. I don’t see a difference in the old term drama critic either. We all do the same thing.

Jesse Oxfeld:
What I did for the
Observer
was really being a reviewer, not a critic. Criticism is not service journalism. Criticism is engaging with the art form and having a conversation with the artist. Reviewing is saying, “This was nicely done, and it’s worth your money.” There was a period of time when I would call myself the
New York Observer
’s theater reviewer instead of its theater critic, but the distinction was just too tiresome to make.

Andy Propst:
It comes down to how you view your own work. On my best days, I approach criticism. On the worst, I’m a reviewer.

Ben Brantley:
The terms are used pretty much interchangeably. My title is chief theater critic. I think criticism is not consumer reports. It should give a little more. It should let the reader figure out for himself or herself how they would respond were they in the critic’s shoes, even if they don’t necessarily agree with the critic.

Chris Jones:
I consider myself a critic. It’s true that I write for a daily newspaper, so maybe my criticism is not as considered, and it does not have the hindsight of history. It’s immediate, but I don’t think that makes it any less valuable.

Peter Filichia:
The critic tells the show’s creators where they’ve gone wrong. The reviewer tells people whether a show is worth their time and money. For newspapers, I’m a reviewer. In my books, I’m a critic. A lot of pros in the business tell me that they enjoy reading what I write because I try to find solutions for problems in a show. It’s not enough for a critic to say that something stinks.

Roma Torre:
A reviewer is somebody who just says whether a show is good or bad without going into any real depth. A critic is somebody who analyzes the show in a methodical fashion. I hate to admit it, but I am more of a reviewer—only by virtue of the time and space limitations that have been imposed upon me. It’s thoroughly disconcerting to me because I have so much more I want to say about each work I see. On the other hand, it has forced me to be far more economical in my writing. I have very little room to wax poetic on anything. It’s a constant frustration, but it’s the nature of the beast.

Adam Feldman:
The critic may have his or her own set of standards stemming from a particular approach. That can often be seen in academic work, where people delve into a particular work of art or a set of works within a specific intellectual context. They often have more space in which to do it, and it can be more analytical and have less to do with a recommendation or non-recommendation. For those of us who write reviews fairly quickly, it’s a balancing act to describe what the show is and let audience members find the right shows for themselves while also making critical judgments about the quality of shows.

Scott Brown:
That’s a pretty artificial distinction. What’s important is that you’re saying something that’s relevant and interesting, and that you’re fully engaged with the material. I don’t want to be preachy and say, “Theater reviewers just check the boxes of what the show did or didn’t do and have snarky comments, while theater critics spin glorious curlicues of wisdom into the air.” It varies show to show, too. I’ve turned in things that were just reviews and other things that might be classified as criticism.

Jesse Green:
I prefer to be called a critic. That said, I don’t think criticism (as I would define the term) really exists anymore. I may be disrespecting the great work of many people, but if criticism does still exist, it’s not popular. I’m sure there are academic journals where you can find drama criticism, but the only thing I would like reading less than a manual on how to work a toaster oven would be academic dramatic criticism. The days when dramatic criticism stood as a popular conversation, when it was part of what a writer delivered to interested readers, are long gone. Even in monthly magazines, it’s extremely rare to get any kind of writing that looks at the larger picture of the theater.

John Lahr:
I do think there’s a difference between a reviewer and a critic, and I’ve gotten flak from some quarters about this. In our culture, a reviewer is really there for a marketing function: to give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. They’re not having a discussion so much as treating the show as a news story. They’re writing for the readership. Criticism has an entirely different function. A critic treats the theater as a metaphor to be interpreted. A critic puts the play into a larger context. Historically, there’s been very little criticism in America. There have been a few places you can point to, like the
New Republic
, or the
Nation
when Harold Clurman was writing for it.

I wrote a polemic recently for the
Nieman Reports
where I talked about the difference between critics and “crickets.” A lot of today’s newspaper reviewers are just bluffing. They don’t know what they’re talking about in any deep sense. They tote a similar line. They talk about Pinter pauses or Tennessee Williams being all about sex. They codify all the major styles in a way that makes them uninteresting to the audience. There’s no space for discussion. As a result, the narrative of the theater gets impoverished.

Michael Schulman:
The
New Yorker
certainly aspires to criticism rather than reviewing. Hilton Als’s and John Lahr’s essays go beyond whether a play is good or Tony-worthy or whether people should buy tickets. The term reviewing implies that it’s a consumer service. I think that’s what the
New York Times
does. The
Times
reviews shows, but on a very high level. Criticism stems from a kind of intellectual discourse about any number of things. If you read some
New Yorker
reviews, they don’t necessarily tell you whether to go out and buy tickets. They tell you something about the larger questions of the arts.

John Lahr has described his job as being like a shrink. He sits back and listens to the play, as if it were a patient. And when there’s something wrong with it, he diagnoses it. It goes a lot deeper than a checklist of looking at the set, the lighting, and the lead performance. Michael Feingold sort of steps back and looks at something in a much larger historical context. I think of it as looking at a painting from various distances. There’s a normal distance where you go up to a painting, look at it, take it in, and decide if you like it or not after five seconds. Michael Feingold is looking at paintings from different angles, looking at something from across the room and seeing how it reflects all the other paintings. John Lahr is looking at something very up close and observing the texture of the craft.

Michael Sommers:
I’m a reviewer, not a critic. When you get 500 to 750 words to write about a show, and sometimes as little as 250 words, that’s being a reviewer. You’re basically telling people what the show is and giving them some flavor of it. A critic is someone who looks at the show in a more leisurely fashion. The critic brings more outside elements into the review. As a reviewer, I’ve got no room to talk about how the show relates to other circumstances. I don’t know how many real critics there are anymore. A great critic was Eric Bentley, even though I disagree with most of the things he wrote. That was criticism. There isn’t much of that anymore. Who’s got the time to read it?

David Finkle:
I think of myself as a reviewer. When you call yourself a critic, you’re asking to be taken very seriously. I like the idea of not necessarily seeing yourself as important.

MATT WINDMAN:
How does being a theater critic compare to being a different kind of arts critic?

Elysa Gardner:
It’s all different media with different elements. But at the end of the day, it’s about the visceral impressions that the art makes on you—whatever art that is.

Michael Sommers:
With any kind of criticism, what you’re trying to do is put a work in some sort of context and give people an understanding of what it is.

Jesse Green:
Theater is not a vibrant economy anymore. Film is extremely vibrant, and TV is even more vibrant than film. I get a breakdown every day of the hits on the
Vulture
website, which is
New York
magazine’s cultural web presence, and it’s organized by cultural category: film, music, TV, theater, books, and art. Without giving away any trade secrets, I can tell you that TV is almost always at the top and theater is almost always near the bottom, unless James Franco was involved in whatever I reviewed the previous night. Perhaps it’s a reflection on my writing, but I don’t think so. It’s just the way it is.