Leonard Jacobs, National Theatre Editor and theatre critic for Back Stage and New York Press, is also the mind behind the popular theatre blog, Clyd Fitch Report. Brave soul that he is, Leonard agreed to be our first "Critic on the Spot" by fielding questions from some of our Extra Criticum authors.
Every few days, we've posted a new Q&A between Leonard and one of us. Here's #6 (our second-to-last!) in our series, this one from Rolando Teco.
Q:
I hear a lot of complaining from my peers about the current state of criticism in general and theatre criticism specifically. Namely, there are those who feel that critics have become "consumer advisers" rather than critics, i.e. they simply tell readers whether a show is worth the price of admission whereas in days gone by, the critic was more highly regarded and seemed to be engaged in a kind of dialogue with the creative teams behind the shows being reviewed. Another way of putting it is: there are some who feel that criticism has an obligation to try to elevate the art form. My question is: Does any of this ring true to you or do you think it's just a lot of hot air?
A:
This refers to stuff I was writing about in a previous answer. I do believe that critics have an obligation to elevate the art form; I also believe each critic must discover his or her best way of doing so. (Some critics believe they raised the art form simply by dint of being born, and that they can walk on water, too.) I also believe, as I noted before, that the critic functioning as a consumer advocate is an innocuous idea.
A few other things you raise here are really excellent to think about. I’m not sure when critics were more highly regarded—or at least I’m not sure by whom. I think, also, that we don’t want to conflate the word “regarded” (which implies that other industry folk agree with or greatly respect what the critic says) with “influential” (which implies that tickets may be sold on the trigger power of the critic’s words). In terms of influence, I suspect it’s all much more diffuse now than it used to be. Just to be mainstream for a minute, if you examine the 13-year tenure of Frank Rich at the New York Times, I’d wager that more Broadway shows closed within the first two weeks of performances than during the tenure of Ben Brantley, who has been the chief drama critic for almost as long (12 years). You can assert that there were more crappy shows during Rich’s tenure than Brantley’s, or you can assert that the power Brantley wields is less than that of Rich. If you factor in the Internet and the blogosphere and, dare I mention it, TalkinBroadway.com, the answer seems pretty clear.
But back to your question about critics being “regarded.” I honestly wonder if any of the more “regarded” critics sell tickets. For example, John Lahr, who I regard very highly, is highly regarded by everyone else, too, but I’m unclear as to whether a thumbs-up signal from him triggers a box-office avalanche. I don’t know. I do know that if you look at all the decades Robert Brustein wrote for The New Republic, it’s unquestionable the respect he commanded (and still does), but I don’t know if blue-haired ladies lined up at the Belasco on the strength of his articulated views.
One final thought. It seems to me that “regard” is a matter of inside or outside baseball. If you’re respected by the public, over time you accrue a certain kind of power. If you’re respected by the industry, you accrue a different kind of power. The question is what one does with it, assuming one actually does anything with it. As I noted in the answer to a prior question, one of my models is Brooks Atkinson; Walter Kerr is another. I’m truly in love with the idea that Elliot Norton, through criticism and his personal friendship with, I think, Oscar Hammerstein II, helped a show called Away We Go! become a landmark musical called Oklahoma! What critic and artist have that kind of professional or personal comity now? The whole idea is romantic, I know that—and I know we don’t live in romantic times. But that does not mean we shouldn’t strive to integrate, whenever possible and appropriate, the critic’s dramaturgical eye with the craftspeople of the stage. The dramaturge and the critic are, I would suggest, in the same chess game—or they could be if artistic directors, playwrights, directors, producers, and, yes, practicing dramaturges had some guts.
