Monday, October 16, 2006
Ohio critic's tough words elicit rough reaction
DenverPost.com: "The relationship between a theater critic and the community he serves is far more precarious than it is for TV, film and music critics because nothing is more local than theater. That makes what any critic has to say about it far more personal."
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5 comments:
Wow... the account in the Denver newspaper is a bit more to the point. This article maked Bloom sound like a 2 year old and Brown a saint. The other article last week was printed in the Plain Dealer, so I assumed that bais was a major factor in the retelling of the story. Maybe the Plain Dealer was trying to take the high road and gloss over some details, and maybe the Denver writer has loyalty to a fellow critic. All in all, the author is correct. A critic is for the communinty, not for his personal adgenda.
"But c'mon: This incident was just absurd. How can the head of a regional theater company lead his institution to great standing when he is behaving like a child?"
Clearly, someone just couldn't hold it in anymore. I am sure Bloom's company staff were extremely embarassed but who wouldn't have been a little bit satisfied with what he had done? Any creative artist who has gone through the same thing must feel some sort of pleasure for taking a critic down, especially one that does not have a great reputation.
last post written by MIho Yawata
So i agree with both of you here. The critic is for the community, and while he/she is pointing out specifics sometimes, they are for the betterment of the entire production, not to attack some person as an individual. If so, that is a different problem. At the same time, it probably would be nice from time to time to let a critic know what you think about him as well from the artist's point of view. This does not mean having a confrontation in a theater lobby though, and I would have hated to have been an usher or somebody standing around.
In a recent interview of New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, she notes that times in the world of reviewing have changed substantially recently. Critics used to be able to write about how the production was, and now they are often forced to basically provide a synopsis of the show. I don't think that people in the theatre understand the pressure of being a critic and letting your opinion go out into the world. Clearly Bloom overreacted in this situation, but I think that it is a common occurence in the theatre world that the critics and the players are all part of a similar circle, and theat they often do have to play nice.
To what extent does this damage the actual critiques, and at what point is the critic no longer able to do his job.
In an acting class once, I was told that you never learn anything from a good review, only from bad reviews. As a theatre person, you must learn to take from those reviews things to help you improve your abilities and make a better product.
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