The Clyde Fitch Report: On March 14, 2014 the New York Observer critic Jesse Oxfeld tweeted to followers that his weekly newspaper would “no longer be running theater reviews, I’ve been told.” Then in apparent triumphant defeat or defeated triumph, he continued tweeting that he’d be heading straight to a Las Vegas weekend—and more power to him.
6 comments:
I find this surprising because theatre is starting to become more popular with the general public now more than ever. A lot more kids have dreams of going to Broadway when they get out of high school and many know the lyrics of all the songs in Wicked. I feel like the publishers just don't think that art critiques are a hot topic anymore. They might have taken a poll about their readers' favorite sections and found out that minimal people read the arts section, so they just cut it. But the reason that people don't read the arts section is because the people that would be interested in it, i.e. artists, are out doing something with their lives and not reading about other peoples' successes and failures. Artists don't look at reviews unless it is a review on themselves and often not even then.
I have mixed thoughts on this idea. Professional theater critics I think are starting to disappear. The only newspaper that I feel people really go to for reviews is the New York Times. This is because they have created such a high reputation for themselves. Today, there are so many blogs and other ways that we can hear people's thoughts on theater that we don't need professional critics. Thus making every theater-goer a critic.
If it's true that theatre critic are really becoming less, I don't find that sad. As a patron of the theatre, it is useful to have reviews because we cannot see all the shows ever, but I think that reading reviews of shows you will see really can ruin it. Even if the show is spectacular, and the review is glowing, I believe that any review spoils the show just a bit, and people tend not to appreciate it, and get some preconceived notions. That ruins a lot of the effect of the show.
The only reason it makes me sad that theatre critics are becoming less and less common is because it sends the message that theatre is not worth reviewing in the eyes of these journalists. My brother is a journalist, and it makes me sad how the journalism world is transforming into a social media empire. I think theatre critics validate theatre's cultural place in society. My entire family heavily reads newspapers, and my grandparents, aunts, and uncles are always telling me the latest theatre production in New York that got a really great review. It is sad that this may soon no longer be the case.
At first I thought this article was a bit ridiculous, and the way it is written I still believe that, but there is a point made here. With movies being as popular and accessible as they are now a days, the average Joe that reads The Observer may not be motivated to read about shows they will never see. On that same note, in the theater world, the types of shows that are coming out now a days are not even effected by actual theater reviews, but instead other PR events and releases. Everything Disney for example, parents wanting to take their children to see Marry Poppins or The Little Mermaid, they are not going to pick up a paper and see which one an older man thinks would be fun for their children. Then there are shows like Spiderman who have had so much press that has nothing to do with the quality of the show that any critic's reviews would have no big effect on readers.
Is the problem that theater critics are becoming extinct, or that newspapers are becoming archaic, and theater critics are the first casualties of the war? I essentially agreed with a lot of the author's points, but something about his tone rubbed me the wrong way. I get that it's frustrating to see your line of work dying a slow, miserable death, but it's a little presumptuous to say that just because someone isn't writing about theater in newspapers, it's dying out as a cultural touchstone. If anything, social media has increased then number of people critiquing everything, from books, to movies to theater. I think what the author is upset about is less about the disappearance of theatrical criticism, and more mourning the loss of clout and recognition that being a theater critic used to have as a perk.
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