Fact: America’s newspapers are locked in a struggle for survival, fighting for financial stability and relevance at a time when money and attention increasingly focuses on online and video outlets.
Fact: Philadelphia’s newspapers are locked in a singularly ugly battle for survival, because after several instances of ownership turnover in recent years, the Inquirer and Daily News are now owned by a partnership in which the partners are suing one another over control of the business.
Fact: While newsroom cuts are the norm at papers across the country, and arts positions are being lost everywhere, Philadelphia is the largest city in the country which does not have a full-time theatre critic on staff at its daily newspapers, despite an array of professional theatre production in the city and surrounding area.
I lay these items out as preface for consideration of a single theatre review (which I hope you’ll read in its entirety), Toby Zinman’s Inquirer critique of the Arden Theatre Company’s production of Water By The Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes, the play which received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This review has been the subject of a great deal of online comment as a result of a blog post on a site called “Who Criticizes The Critic?” The essay itself is “Critical Case Study #1: A Brutal Lack of Investment,” written by a pseudonymous author identified only as “criticcrusader.”
Armando Batista & Maia Desanti in Water By The Spoonful at Arden Theatre Company (Photo: Mark Garvin)
As the blog post circulated on Twitter and Facebook this past week – though it and the review are from late January – I saw a range of responses, from many who applauded the critique and from some who took issue with its legitimacy because of the anonymity of the author. I initially chose not to share it on social media because I’m troubled by criticism, let alone attacks, by unnamed voices on the internet. But I kept returning to the original review, and the critique of it, repeatedly. Then, by coincidence, I saw Hudes’ The Happiest Song Plays Last over the weekend at Second Stage, which brought the review to mind yet again; Song is the final piece in a trilogy of which Spoonful is part two.
I feel compelled to weigh in on Zinman’s review not because I make a habit of critiquing critics, but because I think her piece repeatedly crosses professional boundaries, in terms of what theatre, and all of the arts, should hope for from those who are paid to critique them, especially by major media outlets, even wounded ones. I know I’m echoing “Critical Case Study #1,” but I hope a bit more dispassionately. Those who discount “criticcrusader” for writing under an alias can make no such charge at me.
For transparency: though I went to college in Philly, I haven’t worked professionally in the city in 30 years, save for moderating some talks at the Philadelphia Theatre Company and doing some site visits for The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. I do not know Toby Zinman or her editor Rebecca Klock. I have never attended the Arden Theatre and so I did not see this production. I cannot recall having ever spoken with the company’s leaders, though it’s possible I did at some point in the past.
And so.
It seems that the least we can hope for from a critic, whether staff or freelance, whether well-compensated or paid the pittance that is the shameful norm for most freelancers, is an informed opinion. Since Spoonful has received one of the highest awards given in theatre, it is not unreasonable to expect a critic to have a basic knowledge of that pre-existing work before attending it. Zinman has a Ph.D. in theatre and has written several books on the subject; she also teaches English at Philadelphia’s School of the Arts. She is far from a novice. Yet of Water By The Spoonful, Zinman writes:
“I imagined it might be about the global water crisis:
Consider the recent chemical tainting of residential water in West Virginia. Consider the drought and raging wild fires in California. Consider that more than 1.2 billion people on earth now live without a reliable source of fresh water.”
Why is this in a review? Even if Zinman elected to remain wholly ignorant of the work, what is the relevance of her musings on the title? Our water crisis is a perfectly legitimate concern, but it has nothing to do with the play. Print space is limited in any paper, so why use precious column inches on an irrelevant topic? Her aside accounts for more than 10% of the word total of the review.
“This play is about a bunch of crack addicts who do awful things and are, with the exception of Hudes’ recurring character Elliot, utterly boring and unsympathetic characters.”
In only the second paragraph of the review, Zinman has dismissed several drug-addicted characters as unsympathetic, without making any effort to explain why. Are struggling drug addicts, in fiction or in life, merely to be written off for their failings? As a central element of the story, this deserves as least as much space as the world’s water problems.
“Presumably, part of the script’s interest for Philadelphia audiences would be the local place-references, but mentioning Jefferson Hospital doesn’t redeem the play for me.”
Sure, audience members at the Arden might experience the odd frisson over hearing the name of a place they know mentioned, but given the productions the play has received in other cities, its locale seems hardly central to its existence or any production. To suggest it is only produced in Philadelphia because of its Philadelphia ties is callously dismissive.
“Yazmin (Maia Desanti) is the sanctimonious rich white girl who is, in ways I couldn’t follow, Elliot’s cousin/romantic interest/best friend.”
Yazmin is very clearly a Latina character. Zinman’s definition of her as “white” involves judging her based solely on the skin tone of the actress playing the role, ignoring any context within the play. Does Zinman doubt that individuals of differing skin colors can be related?
As with any critic, Zinman has every right to dislike the play. She has every right to dislike the production. But the reader has the right to expect some level of rationale for each, or for that matter a distinction between the two. From the review, it is impossible to know the source of Zinman’s poor opinion, save for her calling out of two lines which we can infer she finds wanting, and her mention of a slow pace. She neglects any mention of the physical production. Reading the review gives me the impression that Zinman was annoyed by the whole experience of seeing this play, and made no effort to engage with the play on its own terms.
The Philadelphia theatre scene has increased enormously since my days as a Penn student, filled with theatres and options that didn’t exist 30 years ago. While I will be the first to say that critics have zero responsibility for promoting or selling work for theatres, I think, and I hope most critics would agree, that theatres are deserving of reviews and critiques that adhere to professional standards, regardless of the hardships of the professional outlets that publish them. In my estimation, this review by Zinman fails, but the failing is not hers alone. Did her editor ask her for clarification of her points or suggest excising the extraneous? While presumably copy editors aren’t acting as fact checkers, the erroneous assertion about a character’s race could have been easily clarified by numerous online sources, let alone the readily available script.
As a blogger, I have no editor, no copy editor, no fact checker. I am solely responsible for the accuracy of what I write, and my integrity rests on that. At a professional newspaper, there are ostensibly more checks and balances, but – in my opinion – they failed in this case, in a way that no mere correction can erase or excuse. It calls into serious question the accuracy and validity of this critic’s voice in this case; I do not believe that this is emblematic of the state of theatre criticism nationally, which I value as an arts professional. But The Arden and its production, as well as Hudes’s play, deserve better than they got in terms of fair consideration of their work, regardless of whether the show was liked or not.
On a final note: this review follows on the heels of a very thoughtful piece on the role of a theatre critic by another freelance Inquirer critic, Wendy Rosenfield, writing for the Broad Street Review, in which she speaks of her support for “Theater that widens and deepens the scope of our regional scene.” I applaud that sentiment, but would like to paraphrase it, because Philadelphia – and all communities – deserve journalism that widens and deepens the scope of the city’s arts scene too. The two go hand in hand.
Update March 4, 11:30 am: As this post has circulated online, Jason Zinoman of The New York Times expressed his feelings that if I claim to be someone who believes in mutual respect between arts organizations and arts critics, I had failed to demonstrate it in this piece, by not sufficiently disavowing the tone, language and certain sentiments employed by the anonymous “criticcrusader.” It was my intention that the tone and content of my piece represented my approach to such dialogue, but I was indeed not explicit. Should anyone doubt my commitment to mutually respectful dialogue, let me make clear that the piece by “criticcrusader” was harsh, hyperbolic and unnecessarily personal, hardly the tone to be adopted when attempting to lobby for more considered and accurate writing; the anonymity is counterproductive as well. The thoughts in my piece, which may overlap with the earlier essay, are my own and I stand by them; however, to have not acknowledged what prompted me to write would have been dishonest.
I happen to follow a group of smart, funny and insightful television journalists on Twitter – among them Alyssa Rosenberg, Todd VanDerWerff, Linda Holmes, Alan Sepinwall, Kate Aurthur, Roger Catlin and June Thomas. As a result, for the last 10 days or so, my feed has been overrun with their real-time thoughts and intramural conversations about the new and returning crop of television programs, because they’ve all been together at the Television Critics Association‘s summer residency in California, where they’ve had a daily barrage of presentations by dozens of TV networks.
It’s been pretty entertaining and informative watching these folks melt when Tom Hiddleston starts quoting Shakespeare (he plays Prince Hal/Henry V in the upcoming The Hollow Crown) and get riled up when sitcoms try to defend reactionary humor about race by draping themselves in the flag of All In The Family. Even as they acknowledge their own complicity in a grand promotional scheme, they’re proving their value as cultural commentators, generating instant awareness for the upcoming TV season and no doubt stockpiling material for coverage and commentary to come.
So I ask: where’s the corollary event for American theatre?
To be sure, there are few media outlets these days that are likely to underwrite theatre journalists spending a week or more hearing comparable presentations; travel budgets are limited if they exist at all. Unlike TV, the majority of theatre is ultimately a local or regional, rather than national, event. But it strikes me that while there are any number of conferences and convenings within the field itself (i.e. the TCG conference and Broadway League spring road conference), some of which invite the press, they are designed for “internal” field conversations, rather than focused for those who write about the field. The open-to-the-public TEDx Broadway conference is, consistent with the TED template, presentational; the annual “day after the Tony nominations” press event is a mob scene of media outlets scurrying for timely soundbites from shellshocked nominees, shuttling from booth to booth, providing brief access tied to a singular event.
The American Theatre Critics Association meets twice annually, and they regularly invite artistic guests. But by and large, content is geared towards what’s taking place in the locations they visit; their winter/spring gathering is in New York every other year, with alternate spring events and the summer locale varying. I wonder how fully the broad spectrum of American theatre is available to them each year, as a result of purely logistical and budgetary considerations.
Now maybe part of the lure of the TCA events is that it allows TV journalists to be in the same room with people they normally see only on screens, or perhaps in the occasional phone interview. Certainly there’s a thread of fandom running through their tweets when certain figures appear; in addition to the Hiddleston admiration, Sesame Street characters and one of the Bunheads also provoked enthusiasm from the TV tweeters. Theatre journalists, on the other hand, are used to being in the same room as many of the artists they cover, not least because the performances are live, not on some digital medium.
But I’ve also watched as the TV journos take the opportunity to ask questions of the various panels arrayed before them, and even comment upon each others questions, as well as the sometimes informative, sometimes evasive responses from the panelists. While it seems that the networks do their very best to control the flow of events, some of the conversations that ensue can be unexpected and even messy. Still, even after day upon day of seeming incarceration in hotel meeting rooms, the writers can get fired up about the field they’re covering, both pro and con. That has enormous value.
So how do we foster this kind of engagement with the journalists who cover our field? They, like we, face enormous challenges, and we should be bonded together in our support for the arts. Yes, Twitter has created a platform where certain critics and select artistic leaders pursue truncated dialogues and debates, subject to the vagaries of happening to be online at the same time, but sustained interactions between the press and our field are usually limited to proscribed interviews on certain subjects, rarely lasting more than an hour. That’s pretty perfunctory for people who rely on one another for aspects of their livelihood, and we should do better.
I’m not suggesting a marathon event like the TCA’s, for practical reasons. But what if every summer (when fewer companies are in production), artists, commercial producers and not-for-profit heads, of ventures large and small, from around the country, had a platform for candid but on the record conversations with the theatre press? What if the ratio were more or less equal? What if journalists could speak with creators not just from their own community, but hear what’s going on in multiple locations from the people making the work, not just their peers who actually get to see it? Yes, I imagine the prospect might frighten many on the theatre side, since the instinct is to always try to control the story, but don’t you think that’s the case as well for the TV networks? Admittedly, showing the work itself would prove problematic (not an issue for TV or film), but properly constructed, an event of two or three days duration could do more than just hold participants’ interest, but inspire it as well.
This is not rocket science and the TCA event is only one model. Social and streaming media could actually open up such an event even more broadly, and if there’s one thing theatres and theatre journalists could use, it’s a broader platform, rather than an ever-narrowing one. Could this take place under the aegis of an existing entity or several banded together? Of course it could, so long as everyone seeks a common goal, not the singular aim of their own organization. Could this prove contentious at times, as thoughts are openly shared? Absolutely, but that’s what makes news, and disagreement isn’t always detrimental.
None of what I say here should be taken as criticism of any of the events that already exist in theatre or in the broader arts community. They are constructed with certain goals for distinct constituencies and each achieves their ends ably I’m sure. But perhaps we need one more event, one crafted specifically for the mutual needs and interests of those who make and produce work and those who help carry our news and work to a broader audience, instead of, on occasion, inviting them in to watch us talk among ourselves or to serve our immediate promotional needs – or being in a select group from our field invited in to talk with them. We are often in the same rooms at the same time at performances. What about being in a room where we actually converse?
Those who follow my Twitter feed know that I almost never tweet out reviews; I figure that there are plenty of others, including critics themselves, who do, so why be redundant. I focus my energies on highlighting material which may not have had the same kind of exposure.
For the second year in a row, I’m breaking that moratorium on my blog, because “Best Of” and “Top Ten” lists are affirmative summaries of the year in theatre. They represent what critics found most compelling or enjoyable, and even though some decide to toss brickbats with “Worst Of” lists, I’ve avoided linking to those unless they’re appended directly to the “Best Of” praise.
It’s worth noting that all of these lists should be taken with a grain of salt; that is to say, except in all but the smallest markets, they are almost inevitably incomplete, as critics do not have the time (or are not compensated) to see every last production in the area. These are perhaps better considered “favorites,” but that is no doubt insufficiently declarative for many editors, and if 10 Commandments could be selected out of a pool of 617, then surely critics can do likewise. But it’s worth noting that the critic for Time, a national magazine, has restricted his selection to New York; is this because that is where he saw the best work, or because that is the only city in which he went to the theatre this year?
Other than scanning my most cursory summary of each list, I urge you to use the links to look more carefully at what critics had to say about the works they selected, and in particular to do so to learn more about those plays that are unfamiliar to you. Also, as there were multiple Uncle Vanyas, for example, it may not be clear which production is being praised.
Finally, I should say that this is a work in progress and inevitably incomplete, but I urge you to tweet to me at @hesherman with links to lists that don’t appear here, and I’ll keep updating until after the new year.
The Iceman Cometh, The Whipping Man, The Brothers Size, Into The Woods, Office Ladies, Breaking The Code, This Bird’s Flown: A Tragedy Of Antiquity, A Skull In Connemara, Drunk Enough To Say I Love You, Ages Of Man.
A Chorus Line, Parasite Drag, Tryst, Tomorrow The Battle, Far From Heaven, A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, Cassandra Speaks, Edith, Pride @ Prejudice, Dr. Ruth All The Way.
Red, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Avenue Q, Billy Elliott, Master Harold…and the boys, The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity, Marie Antoinette, Ted Hughes’ Tales From Ovid, Betrayal, Our Town.
Time Stands Still, The Grapes of Wrath, Carousel, Metamorphoses, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Three Days Of Rain, Gypsy, The Shape Of Things, The Mikado, Mamma Mia!.
The Whipping Man, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Anything Goes, Bust, Avenue Q, The Mousetrap, In The Next Room, The Secret Social, The Texas Chainsaw Musical!.
Angels In America, Cascabel, Dark Play, The Doyle And Debbie Show, Hamlet, Hit The Wall, The Iceman Cometh, Jitney, A Little Night Music, Sunday In The Park With George.
Camino Real, Angels In America, Immediate Family, Superior Donuts, The Light In The Piazza, A Little Night Music, Eastland, Hit The Wall, Good People, Sunday In The Park With George.
Sunday In The Park With George, Good People, The Iceman Cometh, Hit The Wall, Metamorphoses, Les Misérables, Time Stands Still, The Invisible Man, The Light In The Piazza, A Little Night Music; also Annie, Beauty And The Beast, Death And Harry Houdini, Kinky Boots, The Letters, The Mikado, Moment, Oedipus El Rey, Sweet Bird Of Youth, When The Rain Stops Falling.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Good People, Hit The Wall, The Iceman Cometh, Idomeneus, Invisible Man, Metamorphoses, Oedipus El Rey, Romeo Juliet, Sunday In The Park With George.
Ruth, The Most Happy Fella, The Night Of The Iguana, The Elaborate Entrance Of Chad Deity, The Farnsworth Invention, Becky Shaw, Oklahoma!, The Producers, Superior Donuts, On The Eve.
Lysistrata Temptress Of The South, Titus Andronicus, Hawk, Twelve Angry Men, Arsenic And Old Lace, The Drowsy Chaperone, Inherit The Wind, Same Time Next Year, Pageant, Bone Boy, Bare, Whale Riding Weather, The Monument, The Men, Who Killed Me, Kill Shakespeare.
The Realistic Joneses, A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, Marie Antoinette, Into The Woods, Carousel, A Raisin In The Sun, Sty Of The Blind Pig, A Winter’s Tale, Les Misérables; also, Satchmo At The Waldorf, The Tempest, Bell Book & Candle, Metamorphosis, Harbor, I’ll Fly Away.
The Kentucky Cycle, Titus Andronicus, The Whipping Man, The Mystery Of Irma Vep, Time Stands Still, The Motherfucker With The Hat, Antony And Cleopatra, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Moustrap, The Real Inspector Hound, Inspecting Carol, The Importance Of Being Earnest, Making God Laugh, Game Show, Hairspray, Lucky Duck, Spring Awakening, Shrek, The Seagull, Sex Drugs Rock & Roll, The Addams Family, Memphis, An Eveneing With Patti LuPone & Mandy Patinkin, Next To Normal, Master Class, The Fantasticks.
On The Town, I Love A Piano, Anything Goes, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Doubt, Arsenic and Old Lace, A View From The Bridge, The Tempest, Eleanor Handley in Much Ado About Nothing & Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Parfumerie, The Miracle of Christmas.
Brimstone And Treacle, Cornelius, A Doll’s House, The Effect, In The Republic Of Happiness, Julius Caesar, Merrily We Roll Along, The River, Sweeney Todd, The Taming Of The Shrew.
The Boys Of Foley Street, Coriolan/us, Love And Information, Timon Of Athens, Sea Odyssey, Constellations, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Red Velvet, Julius Caesar (x2).
Clybourne Park, Death Of A Salesman, Follies, In The Red And Brown Water, Ivanov, Jitney, Krapp’s Last Tape, Our Town, Waiting For Godot, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.
Winter and Happy, Becky’s New Car, The Turn Of The Screw, A Man Puts On A Play, Venus IN Fur, I Am My Own Wife, The Motherfucker With The Hat, Death And Harry Houdini, Next To Normal, Ruined.
Musicals: Avenue Q, Big, Blues In The Night, A Cudahy Caroler Christmas, Daddy Long Legs, The Sound Of Music, Sunday In The Park With George, Tick Tick…BOOM, Victory Farm, West Side Story; Plays: A Thousand Words, Cartoon, The Chosen, Honour, Love Stories, Microcrisis, Othello, Richard III, Skylight, To Kill A Mockingbird.
Rohan Preston: Untitled Feminist Show, The Brothers Size, Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been, Dirtday!, Buzzer, In The Next Room, Swimming With My Mother, The Origin(s) Project, A Behanding In Spokane, Fela!
Graydon Royce: Flesh And The Desert, Ragtime, Spring Awakening, Sea Marks, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Cherry Orchard, Waiting For Good, Measure For Measure, In The Next Room, Buzzer
Once, Falling, The Piano Lesson, The Whale, Tribes, End Of The Rainbow, The Best Man, Clybourne Park, Merrily We Roll Along, Forbidden Broadway: Alive And Kicking.
Dog Days, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Death Of A Salesman, The Convert, Henry V, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The Best Of Enemies, Once, No Place To Go.
Once, Merrily We Roll Along, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, Clybourne Park, Closer Than Ever, Forbidden Broadway: Alive And Kicking, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Porgy And Bess, Harvey, Bring It On.
Top 10 Theatre Moments: Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Once, Clybourne Park, James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris, Kevin Spacey as Richard III, If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, the death of Marvin Hamlisch, A Christmas Story: The Musical, the return of Forbidden Broadway.
Death Of A Salesman, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Disgraced, Sorry, February House, Slowgirl, Uncle Vanya (x 2), the Fugard season, One Man Two Guvnors, Detroit; also The Lady From Dubuque, Annie, Vaya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, A Streetcar Named Desire, Newsies, If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.
Once, The Heiress, Porgy And Bess, Rapture Blister Burn, Newsies, Tribes, Death Of A Salesman, One Man Two Guvnors, Giant, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.
As You Like It, Clybourne Park, Death Of A Salesman, Disgraced, 4000 Miles, Porgy And Bess, Golden Boy, One Man Two Guvnors, The Piano Lesson, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.
Venus In Fur, Once, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Death Of A Salesman, Then She Fell, Triassic Parq, Bare: The Musical, Peter And The Starcatcher, As You Like It, Helen And Edgar.
20 stage moments to remember: Assistance, Bad Jews, Claire Tow Theatre, Clybourne Park, Delacorte Theatres 50th, Einstein On The Beach, Feinstein’s, 54 Below, Marvin Hamlisch, Newsies, Nina Arianda, Norbert Leo Butz, Once, One Man Two Guvnors, The Piano Lesson, Rebecca, Sorry, Uncle Vanya, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Yvonne Strahovski.
Assistance, Detroit, Gob Squad’s Kitchen, Natasha Pieere and The Great Comet Of 1812, One Man Two Guvnors, 3C, Tribes, Uncle Vanya, We Are Proud To Present A Presentation…, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?.
Golden Boy, Death Of A Salesman, Peter And The Starcatcher, Title And Deed, Timon Of Athens, Tribes, Richard III, Clybourne Park, The Whale, The Piano Lesson.
Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Tribes, Sorry, Death Of A Salesman, Cock, the black box conjurations, Detroit, Uncle Vanya, the unmusicals, One Man Two Guvnors.
New York, Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
Ben Brantley: Cock, Harper Regan, Mies Julie, Neutral Hero, Once, One Man Two Guvnors, Peter And The Starcatcher, Sorry, Then She Fell, Uncle Vanya.
Charles Isherwood: Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Detroit, The Piano Lesson, Title And Deed/The Realistic Joneses, The Iceman Cometh, A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, Golden Boy, Disgraced, Uncle Vanya, One Man Two Guvnors.
Death Of A Salesman, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolff?, 4000 Miles, Clybourne Park, Hurt Village, Detroit, The Whale, Disgraced, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Cock, The Twenty-Seventh Man, A Civil War Christmas, Assistance, The Great God Pan, The Bog Meal, Rapture Blister Burn.
Annie, Detroit, One Man Two Guvnors, A Christmas Story: The Musical, Grace, Louis CK on tour, End Of The Rainbow, Forbidden Broadway: Alive And Kicking, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, 4000 Miles.
David Cote: Golden Boy, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, Death Of A Salesman, One Man Two Guvnors, Uncle Vanya, Glengarry Glen Ross, Detroit, Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet of 1812, A Map Of Virtue, If The Is I Haven’t Found It Yet.
Adam Feldman: Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet Of 1812, The Piano Lesson, Tribes, Golden Boy, The Material World, A Map Of Virtue, Hurt Village, The Twenty-Seventh Man, 3C.
Topdog/Underdog, Car Plays, Elemeno Pea, The Jacksonian, Sight Unseen, American Idiot, Sight Unseen, Waiting For Godot, Jitney, War Horse, Red, The Book Of Mormon, Krapp’s Last Tape, Other Desert Cities.
Body Awareness, Spring Awakening, The Music Man, Clybourne Park, The Liar, Slip/Shot, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Next To Normal, A Behanding In Spokane, The Scottsboro Boys.
Original Scripts & Adaptations: What Every Girl Should Know, Jude The Obscure, Shape, Children IN The Dark, Donald, From F To M To Octopus, Sketches Of A Man, Perfect,I Love My Hair When It’s Good: And Then Again When It Looks Defiant and Impressive, The Men In Me; Productions: Acts of Witness: Blood Knot, The Brothers Size, Donald, I Love My Hair When It’s Good: And Then Again When It Looks Defiant and Impressive, Let Them Be Heard, New Music: August Snow, Night Dance, Better Days,The Paper Hat Game, Penelope,Radio Golf, Red, Richie,What Every Girl Should Know.
August: Osage County, Superior Donuts, Killer Joe, King Lear, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, íCarpa, Open Sesame, Firebugs, A View From The Bridge, Macbeth, God Of Carnage, I-DJ, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Les Misérables, An Adult Evening Of Shel Silverstein, Hello Dolly!, My Fair Lady, American Buffalo.
Blood And Gifts, Allegiance, Kita Y Fernanda, A Raisin In The Sun, Harmony Kansas, The Scottsboro Boys, The Car Plays, Parade, Topdog/Underdog, Zoot Suit; also, Visiting Mr. Green, American Night: The Ballad Of Juan Jose, Fiddler On The Roof, Good of Carnage, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.
Sunday In The Park With George, No Child…, Angels In America, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sweeney Todd, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged), The Children’s Hour, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Eleemosynary, This Wide Night, The Foreigner.
Toronto: J. Kelly Nestruck, Globe And Mail
Top 10 Shows (via personal blog): Maybe If You Choreograph Me You’ll Feel Better, The Iceman Cometh, The Matchmaker, Terminus, Home, An Enemy Of The People, The Golden Dragon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, War Horse, Enron; also Top 10 Theatre Picks.
Terminus, Proud, The Little Years, Caroline or Change, Kim’s Convenience, The Small Room At The Top Of The Stairs, Miss Caledonia, War Horse, The Penelopiad, Tear The Curtain.
Mr Burns a Post-Electric Play, Astro Boy And The God Of Comics, Beertown, Really Really, The Strange Undoing Of Prudencia Hart, The Normal Heart, haute puppetry, locally grown theatre, The Servant Of Two Masters, fine old musicals.
December 14th, 2012 § Comments Off on Theatermania: “In Defense Of Theatrical Broliferation” § permalink
This is the note from Kimberly Kaye at Theatermania that preceded my op-ed:
When TheaterMania launched its Bros on Broadway series in October 2012, theatre pundit and arts administrator Howard Sherman reached out to Creative Director Kimberly Kaye via Twitter to say he would be “monitoring” the feature and internet responses to it. After the debut of the TheaterMania’s fourth “Bro” this week, Sherman reconnected, stating he would like to “weigh-in” on the reviews and the controversy around them. Below are Sherman’s thoughts. They belong solely to the author, who received no payment or compensation for his work.
* * * *A number of years ago, I took my two best friends since junior high to a play I was publicizing. They weren’t by any means theatrical novices, having previously been taken by their parents or dragged by me, but they were far from regular theatergoers. (In the past several decades, I can’t recall them ever buying theatre tickets of their own accord.) The show I took them to, a modern romantic comedy, had a brief moment where the leading lady was topless; it was natural within the play and not gratuitous. As we waited for others to file out after the show concluded, my friend Stephen leaned across our friend Mike to inform me I had failed to get good seats. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “If we’d been on the other side of the theatre,” Stephen explained, “we would have had a much better view when she had her top off.“Yes, my old friend is a “bro,” and was one before the term even existed. So Stephen, and Mike as well, are factors that explain, in part, why I didn’t erupt in aesthetic umbrage when TheaterMania introduced its “Bros on Broadway” feature a few weeks back, even though many who know or read me might have expected me to do so. When your best friends are bros, you learn to accept. Frankly, I was a bit surprised by the anger provoked by the first “Bros” piece, and indeed might have missed the article entirely had I not spotted online brickbats being thrown at TheaterMania Creative Director Kimberly Kaye (who I follow on Twitter, but do not know in real life). I reached out to her that day online, to offer a bit of moral support, since it’s never easy to be on the receiving end of public verbal assaults. I’ve been there, so I know.I said at the time that, while my instinct was to be dismissive of the piece, I would adopt a wait-and-see attitude. Would “Bros on Broadway” be a means of ridiculing theatre and those who choose not to attend it in one insulting unit? Only after a few columns appeared would I make any judgment.In the meantime, I pondered the premise. It’s not as if TheaterMania had suddenly jettisoned a theatre critic in favor of bro-mmentators; this was an add-on to their existing theatre coverage. TheatreMania is a commercial venture, and (shockingly) there are other sites that ply the same territory. The new series was certainly unique. While fraternity membership and sports fandom seemed to be recurring resume points for the bros, TheaterMania wasn’t trooping out rejects from The Jersey Shore to pontificate about Chekhov. And the whole “bro” concept is sort of a joke in and of itself, as simultaneously popularized and satirized in the character of uber-bro Barney Stinson [Neil Patrick Harris] on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, so why get all serious?
With four pieces to date, I can now say that “Bros on Broadway” is not the end of theatre criticism as we know it. It is merely another iteration of “citizen criticism” that has burgeoned since the advent of blogs and social media. The premise may have already been copied by another outlet (D Magazine’s “The Broducers “), but I don’t see The New York Times subsuming their arts coverage into the sports section yet, so I don’t think it’s a snowballing trendsetter either.
I’d even argue that “Bros on Broadway” is beneficial to the field of theatre. Within the circles of arts professionals there is always the risk of “talking to ourselves.” That is to say, believing that we are our audience, when nothing could be further from the truth. Getting a true sense of what the man (or woman) on the street may think of the work to which we’re dedicated only makes us better at our jobs, allowing us to understand the perceptions of those not immersed in our world. It’s a good thing for the die-hard theatre buffs to see our cherished, insular world through someone else’s eyes–eyes that don’t line up in freezing temperatures at the TKTS booth.
People far more intelligent than myself have written about how our society is more fractured than ever, facilitated by self-selecting social media circles and DVRs that allow us to only watch what we want. Indeed, if we reached out more astutely to the bros of the world, maybe theatre wouldn’t be the niche pursuit that it is.
Although it’s catchy, I wonder (hope?) that perhaps the “Bros on Broadway” title may prove limiting in the long run. After all, surely there are women who’ve never been to the theatre before, and I’d like to hear from them as well. I’d also like to see first-timers taken to off and off-off-Broadway, or regional theatre, since Broadway is only the tip of the iceberg of American theatre. But fundamentally, I love the idea of introducing new people to the theatre and learning their reactions. In turn, perhaps they’ll look at those of us who are, now and forever, “theatre geeks,” in a new light.
And this all reminds me: it’s time for me to drag Stephen and Mike to the theatre again real soon. It’s good for them to get out of the house and into a dark room.
P.S. If you’re just dying to know the name of the play and half-dressed actress described in the first paragraph, you just might be a bro.
See the story as it appeared on Theatermania here.
“Can you imagine the readership if our critics exuberantly hated LOTS of things?”
To begin with, I would like to stipulate that I read Pete Wells’ now-legendary New York Times review/take-down of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant and I found it, as so many did, a striking and funny piece of writing. I read it, I imagine, with my mouth agape, but not watering. I also suspect, based solely on my own street-side reading of the restaurant’s menu before The Review had appeared, that Mr. Wells had more than sufficient grounds for his opinions of the fare. Donkey sauce, indeed.
With that out of the way, I would also like to say that I found The Review inappropriate as journalism, critique or opinionated analysis for the venue in which it appeared. It was, perhaps, more akin to a “Shouts & Murmurs” piece from The New Yorker, fact stretched to its satirical limits. After the first few paragraphs, the point had already been made, but Wells was allowed to go on, and on, to no other end than to demonstrate how skilled and witty a writer he was, and to insure that his evisceration of the establishment left no possible doubt as to how much he had not enjoyed his multiple dining experiences there.
So I was startled when The Times’ public editor Margaret Sullivan, who I have admired greatly since she arrived at the paper, took time to write a Sunday essay which was a full-throated defense of “Reviews With ‘All Guns Blazing’,” because it struck me as just a bit more piling on by the paper of record (yes, I still view The Times that way) without in any way grappling with the deeper ramifications of reviews which don’t merely damn their critical victims, but gleefully turn the knife. Sullivan’s citation of Dorothy Parker’s famed quip about Katharine Hepburn is ironic, because while Parker needed only a few well chosen, subtle words for her takedown of Hepburn, Wells needed, or at least took, paragraphs, when perhaps two would have sufficed. (Sullivan’s defense was also slightly redundant, since her predecessor wrote a piece on the prerogatives of Times critics one day before his departure and her appointment were announced in July; I registered dismay then as well.)
I stand with critics for their right to say what they think, but when that tips over into being clever or cutting for its own sake, I’d like to lobby for erring on the side of restraint. I’m surprised that Ms. Sullivan doesn’t share that view. Reviews occupy a funny place in papers: they’re opinion pieces, although they’re not corralled on the op-ed page; they’re analysis, but based solely on the aesthetic values of the assigned writer, not any defined criteria; they’re consumer reportage unmoored from a narrowly defined constituency. While those in the profession being reported upon can clearly distinguish between a review and straight news or feature coverage, my own anecdotal experience has shown me time and again that average, casual readers often fail to make that distinction. The Times becomes The Borg for so much of its content.
I have read many famous and scathing reviews of theatre productions over the years and they are etched in my brain; Frank Rich on Moose Murders and the musical A Doll’s Life, both read when I was in college, are two that have stuck with me. But once reviews of that type were targeted at my colleagues and my friends as I became a theatre professional, I lost my taste for them; with the benefit of hindsight, of course, I take greater pleasure going over famously misguided reviews. By way of example, time has proven that one can frequently “draw sweet water from a foul well” in the theatre, even though no less than Brooks Atkinson thought it suspect after seeing Rodgers & Hart’s Pal Joey.
I’m even more concerned about the aftermath of The Review: how it “went viral”; how it generated enormous press coverage about the review itself and therefore The Times; how it is now the standard for critical disdain, waiting to be topped by an even more withering and witty assault. In an era when newspapers struggle for relevancy and attention, will the Wells review send the wrong message: that in order for old-line media to break through in the new media paradigm, it needs to become sensational? I’m not suggesting that The Times is about to become a tabloid, but when we start reading about how much of the paper’s web traffic was generated by that review, it’s impossible not to wonder whether some latter-day Diana Christensen isn’t calculating what periodic salvos like Wells’, skipping from department to department, might do for business. Also, with The Times a flag bearer for top-quality journalism, reviews like Wells’ give license to critics at other outlets to make their own writing more outrageous and attention-getting when possible, quite possibly without the talent the Fieri review employed.
“Is it ever really acceptable for criticism to be so over the top, considering that there are human beings behind every venture?,” writes Sullivan. “I think it is. That kind of brutal honesty is sometimes necessary. If it is entertaining, all the better. The exuberant pan should be an arrow in the critic’s quiver, but reached for only rarely.”
I can support brutal honesty. I cannot support gleeful cruelty. Inventive? Sure. Over the top? Too much for a generally sober-sided publication. Piercing arrows in critics’ quivers? Yes. Thermonuclear weapons? No. And who is patrolling the armory at The Times, to insure this isn’t an incipient trend? It wasn’t Arthur Brisbane and apparently it’s not going to be Margaret Sullivan, at least insofar as criticism is concerned. And while it’s hard to muster enthusiasm for standing in any way on the side of Guy Fieri and his emporium, I have to. I may gag at the thought of Donkey Sauce as a food item, but if it were the title of a play or a painting or a book, I’d want that work treated honestly, directly, vigorously, creatively — and negatively if a critic warrants — but not excessively.
UPDATE November 26 at 3:15 pm: After posting this piece, I learned that less than a week ago, The New York Times‘ veteran book critic Michiko Kakutani had written a review of Calvin Trillin’s Dogfight in which she mimicked the book’s own verse scheme, reinforcing my thesis about critics going awry when they work to show their own cleverness rather than attending to the work at hand. Kakutani’s device is hardly groundbreaking; I see it often for works in rhyming couplets both in print and on stage, most notably Moliere and Dr. Seuss. In a bit of irony, she criticizes Trillin’s “unnecessarily blah” rhymes, but apparently sees no problem with her own ostensible rhyming of “shrub” and “flubs” or “oops” and “moose.” Having run only days after The Review, my concern about criticism that values novelty over insight is only reinforced by Kakutani’s poem.
July 16th, 2012 § Comments Off on Does Criticizing Critics Cross a ‘Times’ Line? § permalink
It cannot be easy being a “public critic,” or ombudsman, so I have a certain sympathy for Arthur Brisbane, The Public Editor of The New York Times. Although he is in their employ, he is charged, as I understand it, with acting as the voice of the people at the paper, exploring issues and practices at the paper independent of the regular news and editorial staff. The practical, personal, professional and ethical issues are complex, no doubt, and it’s worth noting that the paper’s first Public Editor, Daniel Okrent, has turned to the comparably relaxing world of the professional theatre as an alternative.
But despite this sympathy, I have to say that The Public Editor’s newest work, “The View From The Critic’s Seat,” is a disappointment. While written with Brisbane’s usual clarity, it sets up a premise and then utterly fails to address it, leaving this audience member to wonder whether late cuts muted his commentary or whether he simply wasn’t able or willing to confront head on an issue which he himself had highlighted.
In his first act, running a brief 5.5 column inches, Brisbane relates stories of readers who have expressed their displeasure with the tone of several articles in the arts pages of the Times. Since none of those he cites are a Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, NJ, I have to trust that these are direct quotes from actual readers, not composites or inventions. The readers expressed reservations about pieces on the singer Jackie Evancho, principal dancers in a performance of “The Nutcracker,” and the late artist LeRoy Neiman. I know little of the work of the first artists’ named; my closest connection to Mr. Neiman was a free Burger King book cover I received sometime in the early 1970s, adorned with Mr. Neiman’s Olympic art. Therefore, my response to the column is not compromised by any personal feelings about those discussed by The Public Editor.
But after setting up the premise that he will address what some readers see as unduly harsh assessments of artists, Mr. Brisbane pivots suddenly, referring to complaints about criticism as “a certain backwash of discomfort,” employing a negative, unappetizing metaphor unilaterally to this particular subgenre of reader correspondence. He then ceases to utilize his own ostensibly opinionated voice for his disproportionately long Act II, preferring instead to dedicate some 17 column inches to the culture editor Jonathan Landman discussing the scale and challenge of covering all that the Times culture desk endeavors to encompass. And while the scale is almost certainly as wide ranging and logistically complex as Mr. Landman asserts, it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of opinions which may step beyond an undefined line of propriety and into character assassination.
It’s a shame that The Public Editor didn’t go beyond a single source, since within his own paper he can find evidence of ethical quandaries when it comes to authors personal opinions, what appears in the paper and what is appropriate. Perhaps Mr. Brisbane might have explored Charles Isherwood’s declaration that he no longer wished to review Adam Rapp’s plays, an internal issue given a public airing that allowed Mr. Isherwood the opportunity to once again cast aspersions on the work of an author even as he was saying that he no longer wished to be forced into the position of casting comparable aspersions.
That aside, it is the inexplicable avoidance of the very topic he sets up that proves such a letdown and, as if to exacerbate matters, he tosses in a coda at the end of his encomium to the Times cultural reportage saying that it “should never come at the expense of the subject’s dignity.” Well, has it, Mr. Brisbane? Has it? Had he spoken to the various subjects of Times criticism, or conversed directly with the letter writers, I suspect they could have given him numerous examples where they feel that line was crossed, so that Mr. Brisbane could have made his own assessment.
The Public Editor’s column can, at his or her discretion, be a monologue; in this instance it was a two character piece adopting the form of an interview. Had Mr. Brisbane chosen to bring in the active voices of others who are affected by this issue, and not simply spoken with Mr. Landman and quoted from letters, he could have provided a compelling picture of the ongoing struggle between arts and critics, newspapers and their public, and perhaps even between a Public Editor and his employer.
Despite his hagiography of the Times culture section, which I also admire, I shall continue to follow The Public Editor’s work with interest, in the hope that he will challenge authority, play devil’s advocate and on occasion ruffle a few feathers. For those of us who care about (and pay for) quality journalism, The Public Editor has the potential to be one of the most valuable voices in journalism, as a check and balance against the reporting of the news itself.
Followers of the ethical issues surrounding the press in general, and arts journalism in particular, spent the first few days of this week watching and opining on Peter Gelb’s decision to remove reviews of The Metropolitan Opera from Opera News and his decision, only a day later, to restore said reviews, amidst an almost unanimous outcry against his maneuver. Gelb’s efforts inspired sufficient umbrage that even when he reversed his decision, people then criticized him for folding so quickly and not having the strength of his own convictions.
As a result, you may be unaware of another critical contretemps that has set the theatre world abuzz – the Australian theatre world, that is. This past weekend, the stage musical of the film An Officer and a Gentleman opened in Sydney, Australia (please, hold your contempt for musicals derived from movies for the moment). This opening was a source of national theatrical pride, as Australia seeks to bolster its image as the starting place for major musicals, a position declared in the pages of Variety only last week. Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Dirty Dancing, also film-derived, are two previous productions cited. With the advent of the internet, going out of town to work on a show without press scrutiny has become increasingly difficult. Australia is seeking to supplant the West Coast of the U.S. as a place where one can go relatively free of prying eyes.
So what’s the fuss? The Australian, a national daily, first published a short review on May 19 critical of the musical and, on May 21, the same critic reinforced her views with a longer piece. But on the 21st, The Australian also saw fit to publish a letter from Douglas Day Stewart, screenwriter of the film and co-writer of the book of the musical, in which he lashed out strongly at The Australian’s review and its critic, going so far as to suggest that she is “incapable of human emotion.” Because I have seen this coverage on the Internet, I do not know the relative prominence each piece received in print, although it is fair to say that The Australian sought to provoke controversy, since they could have declined to run the letter.
Now artists writing to newspapers to complain about reviews is hardly a new phenomenon. It’s not hard to understand why someone involved in a creative venture would feel compelled to try to debunk not only criticism but the person who wrote it. After all, no one likes being told their baby is ugly. However, in my experience, it’s an impotent gesture at best and a counterproductive one at worst: I am unaware of any critic ever seeing such a missive and then realizing that they were “mistaken.” More often, the critic will respond to such letters by reiterating or embellishing upon their original position, and the artist doesn’t get a second whack. The critic may harbor resentment, to be expressed in the future, against the artist or the producer, whether commercial or not-for-profit. When this sort of thing has come to me as press agent, as general manager, as executive director, I have always sought to talk the artist down, expressing genuine compassion, but trying to explain that other than making themself and perhaps the company feel better, no real good comes of such an action.
When this first blew up in Australia, several of my Twitter friends down under were quick to send me various links, saying, more or less, “Have you seen this?” My initial reaction was to not comprehend why this perennial conflict merited much attention, but consistent replies said that, indeed, national pride was at stake. If that’s the case, then it is unfortunate that so many people have invested emotionally in the current state of Australian theatre through this one production – and even more unfortunate that Mr. Stewart (Mr. Day Stewart?) caused more attention to be focused on An Officer and A Gentleman. The fact is, were it not for his letter, this opening might have escaped me (and no doubt many others internationally) entirely and the show would have been free to develop in relative solitude. Instead, it’s now “the show where the author got mad at the press.” By citing “a plethora of five-star reviews,” Stewart sent many looking for them, and let’s just say I hardly found a “plethora.” (For your reference, here are a selection of reviews from: The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Stage, Crikey, Nine to Five, and The Coolum News)
Thanks to Mr. Stewart, my sense of An Officer and a Gentleman is that it did not meet with general critical acclaim, save for The Australian, but (thanks to comments beneath reviews) that it is a crowd-pleaser. If the creative team feels they have an impeccably wrought success and feel no further work is necessary, the show may be a risky venture based on what I’ve read. The more strategic response to the reviews, if there was to be a response, would have been to talk about the value of many opinions, critical and general public, and talk about how the time in Australia was going to be used to make the show even more successful and entertaining before conquering the known world.
Like the Gelb incident, the Officer and a Gentleman kerfuffle is a result of people not thinking through their actions fully in advance, perhaps not seeking (or accepting) the counsel of others, to the detriment of their institution or their production. The Metropolitan Opera will go on, and it’s very likely that An Officer and a Gentleman will be seen in other countries one day soon. But in both cases, focusing on the productions instead of the press would have been more, well, productive.
It’s a word that is thrown about with abandon. “Flop.” It is synonymous with failure and it’s one of those words that sounds like what it means: short, blunt, unimpressive; the sound of a leaden landing or even the puncturing of expectation.
It is used profligately in the theatre, and indeed aficionados revel in tales of famed flops on Broadway: vampire musicals, Shogun, Carrie, Enron, On The Waterfront, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Even as you read this, you’re adding your own to the list. Theatrical dining spot Joe Allen reserves space on its walls for posters of famous flops (also accessible online); I have to imagine it has either driven away those who were involved in these shows, or at least induces a bit of indigestion as they dine.
There’s a certain grandeur and folly to the theatrical flop. There are countless shows that over the decades have opened, often with big stars and advance anticipation, only to sink quickly out of sight. But to be a truly legendary flop, there seems to be a unique and ever changing set of guidelines that lifts this show or that one into the pantheon; certainly hubris seems to play a role. The more godawful, the better they are for gossip and chatter, years after the fact. Even Shakespeare can flop on Broadway, despite the long-established reputation of the work; living down to its cursed reputation, separate Macbeths featuring Kelsey Grammer and Christopher Plummer come to mind.
Yet for some, notably journalists of a certain vintage, “flop” is not merely a pejorative, but an economic distinction, propagated by the much diminished show biz bible Variety. Any commercial production that does not recoup its initial investment during its Broadway run, even if only shy by five or ten per percent of the capitalization, is a flop. Any show which recoups or exceeds is a hit. This rigidly binary criteria permits no flexibility, so some of Stephen Sondheim’s most admired work takes its place alongside travesties in the Variety annals; flop is an economic distinction, not an artistic one.
I have no doubt that this terminology, part of the distinctive patois that made Variety such a pleasure to read (and commemorated by Animaniacs as “Variety Speak”) dates back many decades, to a time when all major new work debuted on Broadway and the not-for-profit theatre system in America was not yet formed (most agree it launched in earnest in the early 1960s). So does – and should – “flop” retain any power today? There’s certainly no eradicating the word (any more than the failure to nominate certain artists and works for awards will cease to be called “snubs”), but perhaps we can all agree that there’s a benefit to discussing the success or failure of theatre with something approaching nuance.
On a purely economic level, the failure of a show to return its entire investment during its Broadway run does not mean that the show is necessarily unprofitable. Yes, shows that lose their entire investment or return only 30% of the capitalization have a very long road, especially musicals produced for $10-15 million. But what of those shows that get to 85% or 90% recoupment? They are likely to tour; to be licensed to regional theatres, amateur companies and schools; to sell cast recordings even if they didn’t quite snatch the brass ring in the commercial incarnation. Maybe they’ll even be sold to the movies. As a result (and I’m not going to break down how investment income is returned to investors and producers in this post), they may enter profit a year or several years after they’ve shuttered on Broadway. But the public books have already been closed, the rubber stamp of flop already impressed upon their public file; no one issues press releases about recoupment on closed shows (though perhaps they might do well to start).
This isn’t as much of a problem for the not-for-profits that produce on Broadway, or for that matter, Off-Broadway. Since their expenses for any show are part of a larger institutional budget, the issue of recoupment isn’t germane; in their immediate wake, an unpopular show may be branded a flop, but over time that distinction seems to fade in a way it does not for commercial work. This doesn’t stop the media from trying to intimate the dreaded branding iron of flop when discussing not for profit work; witness The New York Times’ “autopsy” for MCC Theatre’s Carrie revival, which wishfully applies the paper’s own commercial expectations for the show in order to support its thesis.
“Flop” strikes me as particularly debilitating when it comes to work that is recognized as having artistic value, even if it fails in the marketplace. As far as I’m concerned, Sondheim’s score for Merrily We Roll Along is one of his finest and while the overall piece proves problematic in reworking after revival after resuscitation, I challenge anyone who would claim that it is an utter failure creatively, even if it is not an unqualified success. By Variety’s yardstick, the original Merrily was a flop, and it’s hard to argue given its brief run, but that fails to do the work justice. If one is allowed more than a single word in judgment, it is an ambitious, flawed work by one of the geniuses of musical theatre; it does not deserve dismissal in a column that codifies only hits and flops. Works of art shouldn’t be “guilty” or “not guilty.”
“Flop” is so associated with theatrical ventures that Dictionary.com goes so far as to help define its meaning by specifically linking it to works on the stage; I can’t compete with that. But perhaps in our conversations in the field, commercial or not for profit, we can bring shadings to assessments of productions. For economics, we must take the long view, and remember that a show’s life does not end the moment it closes in New York. For creativity, I recommend that The Scottsboro Boys, Caroline or Change and Passing Strange shouldn’t be lumped together on any extant list with In My Life and Metro. We would serve work better – even when money is lost, sometimes significant sums – if our collective focused on the succès d’estime, rather than the success of an accountant’s pen. It won’t necessarily cushion financial losses, however they’re calculated, but it will put emphasis back on the work, not just on its bottom line.
You want a rant, Washington Post? Yeah? I’ll give you a rant! I’ll rant like you wouldn’t believe!
[Breathe, Howard, breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth.]
Look, I appreciate that you’re being urged to find new ways for old-line media such as yourself to interact and engage with your readership. I’m all for it. But at what point do you starting ceding your authority? After all, you have a strong staff of arts critics and reporters, and barely two months ago you produced perhaps the single most comprehensive look at a city’s theatre scene that I’ve seen in some 30 years of poring over arts coverage. I don’t think you’re lacking for skills, ideas or perspectives.
So I can’t fathom why you have taken the tack of offering a weekly platform to anyone with, as you explicitly request, a grievance with some aspect the arts community. Isn’t that what your staff is there to do – discover, observe, opine and inform? I know some of your folks and I can say they do not lack for opinion, positive or negative.
If you want to open the floodgates I understand it and on one level, I applaud it, since it begins to model on social media, in the sense that it allows many more voices into the conversations you can start (or end). It’s not a dialogue, which would be healthier, but it is a step away from the monolithic stance that newspapers once cultivated.
My real complaint, however, is that you are only calling for negative citizen journalism. You want to know what people are cranky about, what gets their goat. Is this remotely fair? What about all of the people who want to shout from the rooftops (or the arts pages) about the good they see in the arts community? Surely the city is not a bubbling cauldron of disregard for every artistic endeavor. But if you only solicit that which harps upon the flaws, that’s the picture you’ll paint – especially since this is not an unmediated comments board, but a virtual essay contest, where you’ll reproduce the submissions you like, some in print, others online — so you’re already preparing a hierarchy of complaint as well. What will meet your criteria for worthiness: the best writing or those cavils which your editorial staff deems most valid (i.e. in line with their own)?
Has the paper sought the same kind of input in the sports pages? Are people now going to be able to vent their spleen about local businesses outside of the arts? If you can truthfully tell me this same approach is being adopted throughout the paper, then I can’t really complain, because it would demonstrate editorial consistency. But I have this nagging suspicion that only the arts are being offered up in this manner, either as test case or sacrifice.
Those of us who make our lives in the arts often struggle to make our peace with the criticisms the media applies to our work, but we do — partly because we stand with you in defense of freedom of speech, partly because you support our work by making audiences and potential audiences more aware of what we do, and partly because we know there’s little we can do about it. But we have to draw the line, and you should too. That line should stop at your offering exposure only to those who want to kvetch, unless you also provide room for those who would kvell. Put some balance into this plan before it’s underway, or you will undermine not only the arts in Washington DC and the surrounding area, but your own credibility as well.
While I discuss the role of critics frequently and often engage in conversation on Twitter with several, it has been my practice to neither tweet nor blog about reviews themselves (nor to offer my own). I do this because I believe that there is more than enough judgment of productions going around on and offline, so I need not amplify it further. I break my moratorium to publish this bouquet of bests precisely because these lists seek to champion that which is to be admired; while a few negative assessments are part of these articles and I cannot trim them, the preponderance are about critics’ enthusiasm for what they saw this year and even though a number of the shows herein may be closed, there may be other productions of them to bee seen in the future, especially if enthusiasm is indeed contagious. I’d also like to say how pleased I am that many of the critics herein refused to be shackled by the limitation of “Top Ten,” and often went beyond that arbitrary number, in addition to creating their own categories which applaud more than simply “the best.” Good for them.
A couple of notes: although links to the complete articles are provided, I have summarized just the titles beneath each link; in cases where the lists may themselves have been hierarchical, I have converted them all to alphabetical. Also, I have no doubt that I have missed certain lists and paywalls have excluded me from others; should you happen upon others, please share them with me either through my Twitter account. Also, due to the practices of various sites, some of these links may become inaccessible after a certain amount of time; that’s out of my hands.
Black Watch, chamber musicals, Confidence Men: Improvised David Mamet, set designer Ia Enstara, actress Lauren Lane, Rappahannock County, Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, Spirits to Enforce, The Tempest, Zach Theatre and seven honorable mentions.
The Brother/Sister Plays, Candide, DollHouse, The Drowsy Chaperone, Next Fall, Porgy and Bess, R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe, Richard III, Ruined, and Ten Cents a Dance
All’s Well That Ends Well, The Brother/Sister Plays, Candide, Comedy of Errors, Dogg’s Hamlet/Cahoot’s Macbeth, DollHouse, The Hotel Nepenthe, Hysteria or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis, The Merchant of Venice, 9 Circles, Porgy & Bess, R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe, Richard III, Ruined, and Twelfth Night
Billy Bishop Goes to War, Dying Hard, ENDURE!, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, Grim and Fischer, It Is Solved By Walking, Jake’s Gift, Much Ado About Nothing, Penny Plain, Summer of My Amazing Luck, Wicked, and The Wizard of Oz, as well as other various mentions of notable work.
Shows of the year were: Black Watch, The Cripple of Inishmaan and The Madness of George III; a variety of other shows were included in such categories as Outstanding Solo Turns, Reimagined Classics, Reborn Musicals, House and Home, On the Job, High Style and Brainy Fun.
Black Watch, Chinglish, Clybourne Park, En Route, Follies, An Iliad, The Sound of Music, Spamalot, Terminus, A Twist of Water and 10 honorable mentions
The Big Meal, Church and Pullman WA, Festen, Follies, An Illiad, Middletown, Passing Strange, Porgy and Bess, Sophocles: Seven Sicknesses and A Twist of Water
Burning Bluebeard, The Neo-Futurists; Circle Mirror Transformation, Victory Gardens Theater; El Nogalar, Teatro Vista and Goodman Theatre; 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, The New Colony; The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company; The Homosexuals, About Face Theatre; MilkMilkLemonade, Pavement Group; Murder for Two, Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Spring Awakening, Griffin Theatre Company; Three Days of Rain, BackStage Theatre Company; There is a Happiness That Morning Is, Theater Oobleck; and Vincent River, Theatre Y
Jennifer Blood, The Sound of Music; Kelsey Brennan, Romeo and Juliet; Janet Ulrich Brooks, A Walk in the Woods; Carrie Coon, The Real Thing; Harry Groener, The Madness of George III; Jennifer Lim, Chinglish; Jeremy Myers, Pussy on the House; Caroline Neff, Port; Barbara Robertson, The Detective’s Wife; Bethany Thomas, Porgy and Bess; Dan Waller, The Pitmen Painters; and Billy-bot, Aunt Julie-bot, Hans and robot ensemble, Heddatron
List by an array of topics, including Best Show of the Year in any Category, Best One-Man Show of This or Any Year, Best Musical We’ve Seen in Years, Best Plays About Monarchs, Best Plays About Racism, Best Avant-Garde Plays, Best Adaptations From Other Media, Best Plays With an Irish Lilt and Best Plays About Escaping From Reality.
Two unique lists of bests, featuring the five funniest shows of the year (Better Half, Burning Bluebeard, Musical of the Living Dead, Funk It Up About Nothin’ and That’s Weird, Grandma) and the five best dressed shows (The Clinking, First Ladies, Paper Shoes, Pirates of Penzance, and Vincent River).
Chicago, Conni’s Avant-Garde Restaurant, Darwinii, The Game’s Afoot, La Boheme, The Life of Galileo, Next to Normal, Rent, Ruined, The Trip to Bountiful, and Trying
Agnes Under The Big Top, The Circle, The Crucible, A Doctor in Spite of Himself, Fela!, Fraulein Maria, I’m Connecticut, Next to Normal, Show Boat, and Water By the Spoonful
Ages of the Moon, Arsenic and Old Lace, Cabaret,Ex Voto: The Immaculate Conceptions of Frida Kahlo, Language of Angels, Horton Foote Festival, Rags, Spring Awakening, The Tempest and Thom Paine (Based on Nothing)
August: Osage County, Captiva, Clybourne Park, Crazy for You, Fool for Love, The Light in the Piazza, Masked, Red, Side Effects, and Song of the Living Dead
“Unexpected Moments” in Houston theatre: A Christmas Carol, Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Evil Dead: The Musical, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Museum of Dysfunction IV, Panto Red Riding Hood, Spring Awakening, There is a Happiness That Morning Is, War of the Worlds, and Wild Oats
Blackbird, The Book of Mormon, Circle Mirror Transformation, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Jesus Christ Superstar, Let Me Down Easy, Peace in Our Time, Luise Miller, The Motherf***er With the Hat, The Normal Heart, and One Man Two Guvnors.
Radio Muezzin, Macbeth After Shakespeare, Chinglish, Faust, Being Harold Pinter, When Father Was Away on Business, more…more…more…future, Blood and Gifts, Sleep No More, Cries and Whispers; 10 honorable mentions and 15 special mentions.
The 39 Steps, 42nd Street, Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches, Becky’s New Car, Big River, Chiropractical, Cirque de la Symphonie, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Marginalia at 40, Medea, Rent, Romeo and Juliet, Spamalot, and Twelfth Night, as well as list of top individual performances
List by an array of categories including Electrifying Actors, Scintillating Actresses, The Lowest Moment and Two Highs, Best New Play, Unlikeliest Musical, and Stories on a Biblical Scale.
The Passion, London Road, Richard III/The Comedy of Errors double bill, Matilda, Grief, The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, King Lear, Parade, One Man Two Guvnors and Tender Napalm
66 Books, Accolades, The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, Betty Blue Eyes, Bound, Cause Celebre, King Lear, The Passion, Secret Consul, and The Tempest
Show of the Year: London Road; Best Venue: National Theatre; Best New Play: The Knowledge; Best Fringe Show: Accolade; Best Revival: All’s Well That Ends Well, Ecstasy, Saved, and Top Girls
Alceste, Bakersfield Mist, Blackbird, The Broad Stage (The Grand Inquisitor, The Merchant of Venice, Rockaby), California International Theater Festival, director Bart DeLorenzo (Margo Veil, Day Drinkers), The Hollywood Fringe Tent, Neva, The Next Best Thing, Small Engine Repair, and Trojan Women (After Euripides)
As You Like It, The Best of Enemies, The Drowsy Chaperone, Dutch Masters, Guys and Dolls, The Memory of Water, Taking Steps, Ten Cents a Dance, Turn of the Screw, and Wittenberg, as well as eight more that “left an imprint.”
Aftermath, Apologia, Clybourne Park, Court in the Act, Hedda Gabler, Howie the Rookie, I am Playing Me, Invisble Atom, Little Match Girl, Liza (on an E), Namatjira, Silent Disco, and Smoke and Mirrors
Extensive essay noting plays, directors, performances and companies, along with lists of Best Musicals, Best Plays About Theater and Best One Person Shows.
Graydon Royce: After Miss Julie, Doubt, God of Carnage, The Gospel According to Jerry, Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors, Man of La Mancha, Shirley Valentine, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Waiting for Godot
Rohan Preston: Annie, Ajax in Iraq, God of Carnage, The Edge of Our Bodies, H.M.S. Pinafore, In The Red and Brown Water, I Wish You Love, Les Miserables, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Street Scene
Losing My Religion, Pinocchio, Doubt, After Miss Julie, The Folly of Crowds: A Heterosexual Buttsex Play, Leave, The Winter’s Tale, Bloodymerryjammyparty, Res Resurrected, and The Burial at Thebes.
According to Goldman, The Break-Up Notebook, A Christmas Carol, It Shoulda Been You, Jericho, Kiss Me Kate, Next Fall, No Child, Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, and The Wizard of Oz
The Book of Mormon, Follies, Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, The Normal Heart, Other Desert Cities, Peter and the Starcatcher, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays, War Horse, and The Wood
Blood and Gifts, The Blue Flower, The Book of Mormon, Chinglish, Completeness, Jerusalem, Other Desert Cities, Stick Fly, Sweet and Sad, and Venus in Fur
Anything Goes, Blood and Gifts, The Book of Mormon, Follies, Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures, Other Desert Cities, Sleep No More, Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, and War Horse
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, The Book of Mormon, Follies, Good People, Jerusalem, The Normal Heart, Once, Other Desert Cities, Sons of the Prophet and War Horse
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, The Book of Mormon, An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, Follies, Good People, Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, Jerusalem, The Motherf***er With the Hat, The Normal Heart, Other Desert Cities, Sons of the Prophet, and War Horse
As You Like It, The Book of Mormon, Cotton Club Parade, The Normal Heart, Once, Other Desert Cities, School for Lies, Sons of the Prophet, Sweet and Sad and War Horse
Angel Reapers, The Diary of a Madman, Green Eyes, How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures, Jerusalem, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Sons of the Prophet, and Stage Kiss
As You Like It; The Book of Mormon; By The Way, Meet Vera Stark; The Comedy of Errors; Good People; Once; Other Desert Cities; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); Sons of the Prophet; and War Horse; honorable mentions: Lysistrata Jones, The School for Lies, The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, Sister Act, and Sleep No More
Arcadia, The Book of Mormon, The Cherry Orchard, Cymbeline, Follies, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures, Jerusalem, Other Desert Cities, School for Lies, Sleep No More, Sons of the Prophet, and Sweet and Sad
Being Harold Pinter, The Book of Mormon, The Cherry Orchard, Follies, Good People, Jerusalem, The Motherf***er With the Hat, The Normal Heart, Other Desert Cities, and Sweet and Sad
Belleville, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Blood and Gifts, 4000 Miles, Jerusalem, Kin, The Motherf***er With the Hat, Sons of the Prophet, Venus in Fur, and The Walk Across America for Mother Earth
Anything Goes, The Book of Mormon, Chinglish, Follies, Good People, Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, The Importance of Being Earnest, Other Desert Cities, The Normal Heart, and War Horse
Derby Days, The Divine Sister, Enfrascada, Ennio Marchetto The Living Paper Cartoon, Gob Squad’s Kitchen, In The Pony Palace/Football, The Lapsburgh Layover, Mangella, Post Office, The Select (The Sun Also Rises), and Silence! The Musical
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Anything Goes, The Book of Mormon, By The Way Meet Vera Stark, An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, Jerusalem, The Normal Heart, Sister Act, The Three Sisters, and War Horse
Anything Goes, Chinglish, The Book of Mormon, Death Takes a Holiday, The Normal Heart, Porgy and Bess, Silence! The Musical, Sleep No More, Traces, and War Horse
Cote: Blood and Gifts, The Book of Mormon, The Cherry Orchard, Elective Affinities, 4000 Miles, Good People, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism with a Key to the Scriptures, Jerusalem, Seminar, and War Horse
Feldman: The Book of Mormon; Good People; Hand to God; Follies, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism with a Key to the Scriptures, Jerusalem; The Method Gun, The Normal Heart; and Tom Ryan Thinks He’s James Mason Starring in a Movie By Nicholas Ray in which a Man’s Illness Provides an Escape from the Pain, Pressure and Loneliness of Trying to be the Ultimate American Father, Only to Drive Him Further Into the More Thrilling Though Possibly Lonelier Roles of Addict and Misunderstood Visionary
Varied selection of categories, including Best Dysfunctional Couple, Most Dynamic Duo and Most Conspicuous Arrival, as well as Best Play, Best Musical and Best Revival.
Chicago, The Color Purple, The Graduate, Hairspray, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Radio Golf, Ragtime, Rent, and The Rocky Horror Show
Anything Goes, The Exonerated, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Lion King, Lovers, Romeo and Juliet, The Turn of the Screw, and Urinetown
The Adventures of Robin Hood, Another Home Invasion, Beowulf, Blithe Spirit, Bingo, Caught in the Net, Driving Miss Daisy, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Lost – A Memoir, The (Post) Mistress, The Ugly One, and When It Rains
August: Osage County, The Camouflage Project, The Drowsy Chaperone, Falsettos, Follies, I Am My Own Wife, Jersey Boys, Legacy, Let Me Down Easy, Oedipus Rex, Scrooge, and Souvenir; also, two youth productions: Cinderella and Stuart Little
Bug, Dark Play or Stories for Boys, Distant Music, The Misfits, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Tartuffe, Three Tall Women, Tuesdays with Morrie, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Year of Magical Thinking and nine honorable mentions
Billy Elliot, The Borrowers, Head: The Musical, Lyle the Crocodile, Matt and Ben, Mr. Marmalade, Munched, Ten Chimneys, This, and The Unhappiness Plays, plus three honorable mentions.
Fat Beckett, House and Garden, Hunter Gatherers, The Importance of Being Earnest, Jekyll and Hyde, Maria de Buenos Aires, Marcus or The Secret of Sweet, Precious Little, Red, Superior Donuts and a dozen runners up.
The Adventures of Captain Cortez and the Tri-Lambda Brigade, Always… Patsy Cline, Assassins, Avenue Q, Buried Child, Chicago, D.O.A.: A Noir Musical, Fifty Words, Hedda Gabler, The Irish Curse, Jurassic Farce, The King and I, The Last Thing You’ll Ever See, The Light in the Piazza, The Lion in Winter, Mame, Mary Poppins, Our Town, Smudge, Stranger, A Streetcar Named Desire, Time Stands Still, Ugly People, and Unnecessary Farce
Angels in America, August: Osage County, Cabaret, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Jesus Christ Superstar, Of Mice and Men, Superior Donuts, Susurrus, and The Tempest, as well as 12 honorable mentions and rundown of the year in theatre news.
Angels in America, August: Osage County, Cabaret, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Jane Austen’s Emma, Milk Like Sugar, Next to Normal, Peer Gynt, Sleeping Beauty Wakes, and The Tempest, as well as the “Just Missed It 20.”
Wide selection of creatively defined categories, including Most Memorable Food Fight, Best Drug Story, Most Inscrutable Triumvirate and Most Polarizing Descent Into the Reptilian Complex
Candida, Clybourne Park, A Delicate Balance, Geezer, The Homecoming, Let Me Down Easy, The North Pool, Phaedra, Ruined, Red Black and Green: A Blues, and The Wild Bride; also “Most Improved” and “MVP”
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Billy Elliot, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Fela!, Let Me Down Easy, Metamorphoses, No Exit, Three Sisters, and The Wild Bride, as well as six honorable mentions, three “innovation awards,” and an acknowledgement of two important works that the critic missed.
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Arrh! . . . A Dinosaur Ate My Spaceship, Endangered Species Project readings, Humor Abuse, Mary Stuart, and Milk Milk Lemonade (list also included dance performances)
Papatola: August: Osage County, Brain Fighters, Come Hell and High Water, Little Shop of Horrors, Man of La Mancha, Shirley Valentine, Street Scene, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Two Trains Running and Waiting for Godot
Hubbard: Neighbors and On The Town
Valois: American as Currie Pie and A Wrinkle in Time
Billy Elliot, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Homecoming, I Send You This Cadmium Red, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Normal Heart, Oleanna, Ride the Cyclone, Topdog/Underdog, The Ugly One, and When the Rain Stops Falling; also nine honorable mentions and four highlights from companies elsewhere in Canada.
Billy Elliot, Ghosts, Hallaj, His Greatness, The Maids, The Normal Heart, Orfeo ed Eurydice, The Post Office, Ruined, and Topdog/Underdog; also includes a list of ‘Riveting Revivals’
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Last 15 Seconds, The Normal Heart, Orfeo ed Eurydice/Iphigenia in Tauris, Red, Ruined, Topdog/Underdog, and Tout comme elle (Just Like Her)
After Jerusalem, Circa, Comedy of Errors, Death of a Salesman, Hard Times Hit Parade, In The Solitude of Cotton Fields, 100% Vancouver, Penny Plain, The Reputation of Lady Mary, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as well as a list of “favorite things”
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Black Watch, A Bright New Boise, The Heir Apparent, King Lear, Photograph 51, Return to Haifa, Ruined, Trouble in Mind, Uncle Vanya and eight “that just missed the cut” (noted on first panel of slideshow)
Those who follow my Twitter feed know that I almost never tweet out reviews; I figure that there are plenty of others, including critics themselves, who do, so why be redundant. I focus my energies on highlighting material which may not have had the same kind of exposure.
