Thanks to my friend Chuck Pennington for posting this
article about the art, craft and attitude one should have in reviewing
community theatre.
Chuck and I have exchanged notes on many
local productions. It was interesting to sit with him at the Central Ohio
Theatre Roundtable awards on January 31st, 2016 and talk about 2015 shows we
saw. We agreed about many of the awards and disagreed on some.
As other reviewers have pointed out, these
kinds of opinions tend to be subjective. I am very aware that many people
don’t share my taste in theatre. I try to be sensitive to that as I offer my
perceptions.
Michael Grossberg is a professional arts journalist
and critic with over 30 years of experience. I appreciated his reflections
and comments during his Harold Award acceptance speech at the Theatre
Roundtable event. He spoke about what he views as the purpose and process of
the art and craft of reviewing and his experiences with that.
Many people have told me that they enjoy my
amateur reviews and look forward to reading them -- unless/until I have
something less-than-flattering to say about a production with which they are associated.
I see about 70 Central Ohio live theatre
performances every year including professional and semi-professional
productions, community theatre, college and high school shows.
I miss a lot of good shows because
I don’t have time to see everything.
I avoid some shows if I suspect their content or
concepts won't appeal to me.
I boycott troupes, directors and actors
when cumulative experiences with them have proven disappointing or unpleasant.
In writing my evaluations, I try to be honest.
I assign numerical ratings to
18 elements, including curtain speeches and audience behavior.
A rating of "ten" is for what I
perceive to be an ultimate, fully-realized, professional
implementation.
A rating of "one" is for things that nobody should
ever have to experience in the theatre.
Few productions ever rise to an overall ten for
me. Nothing has ever descended to a one.
If I cannot give
something an overall rating of five or above, I don’t publish a review because I know it will only hurt people’s feelings and invite personal
attacks. Since I am not getting paid for my opinions, I don't need to
incur that kind of negativity and aggravation.
I find it is better to emphasize
compelling, informative and entertaining elements of shows, even while noting a
few flaws.
I love good theatre and I want to support
it. I want to encourage others to go see shows and participate in the
many meaningful, uplifting opportunities with which the Central Ohio theatre scene is
so richly endowed.
by Skip Maloney onstageblog.com
There is, and as
far as I have been able to determine, always has been a problem with reviews of
community theater productions. While the quality of the productions under
scrutiny can vary widely from very, very good to very, very bad, community
theater reviews always seem to err on the side of caution, which, in general,
tends to produce an essay that tries hard, often too hard, to be nice.
The fault lies in the
nature of an often unspoken relationship between the media that publishes such
reviews and the community it serves. Appearing in a local newspaper, or
sometimes as commentary on a local radio station, community theater reviews
(not all, but many) proceed from the assumption that since the local performers
and production staff are unpaid, it's unfair to measure the performance with
the same yardstick used to assess a more professional offering, which is
nonsense.
While local theater
companies operate under obviously tighter budget constraints, there is no
single aspect of a theatrical production that is defined by the amount of money
that can be thrown at it. I've witnessed productions that were mounted
with the aid of millions of dollars on Broadway that worked better in community
theater productions with far less to spend. Equus comes to mind. I've seen
professional productions of it on Broadway (most recently with Daniel Radcliffe
in the role of Alan Strang), and a variety of regional, professional theater
productions and none were as effective as a community theater production of it
that I witnessed in a 50-seat, small-old-schoolhouse in Reading, Massachusetts.
In a way, local theater
reviews are hampered by a mindset, which asks the question, "Well, what
can you expect?"
It's community theater,
right? Local, unpaid performers and staff can't be expected to create a product
with anywhere near the level of professionalism exhibited by companies that do
this sort of a thing for a living.
This is nonsense, too; a
particularly insidious form of nonsense, because it can affect the local
performers and staff who mount local productions and end up believing that
there's no way they can do professional work, and after all (they think), it's
really just about being involved.
No one is expecting
professional work, so why bother trying to achieve it?
Enter your local theater
reviewer, who, bearing all of this in mind, tries to be nice. Makes comments
about a particularly good individual performance, or the good lighting, or
whatever it takes to "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and
(not) mess with Mr. In-Between."
God forbid that a
reviewer should note that a particular performer appeared to have no idea what
he or she was doing, or that a trumpet player in the band couldn't hit a lot of
the notes he was expected to, or that the production, in general, failed,
fundamentally, to deliver the promise of a given script. Ignore the fact that a
performer in a minor role appeared incapable of paying attention to what was
going on around him/her unless, and until he/she had lines to deliver.
And above all, never say "bad," "awful," or
"horrendous" because the fragile egos of the people on and back stage
will be incapable of dealing with it; might even write a nasty Letter to the
Editor saying "How dare you?"
This equation does far
more disservice to a community than the mere fact of a bad production, because
it has a way of lowering expectations, on both sides of the proscenium arch. A
local theatre patron reads a "nice" review, goes to the see the show,
and assumes because the reviewer knew what he/she was talking about, that what
they're witnessing is a good production, even if, in truth, they end up bored
out of their skulls, anxious to get back out on the street and check for
messages on their cell phones. And while the performers get to bask in the glow
of the nice things said, they move onto the next production, secure in the
knowledge that they're doing good work, when, perhaps, they're not.
Recently, having
witnessed a particularly bad, horrendous and just awful production of a play,
I was surprised by a local writer's nice, even glowing review. It wasn't
even a play. It was an evening of original material sketch comedy, with trivia
questions (???!!) thrown into the middle of it, presumably to keep the audience
engaged, because there was very little else going on with the ability to do
that. Opinions are, of course, like certain body parts. Everybody's got them,
but I saw at least half a dozen people texting during the production. Oh, they
courteously had the ringtones and alerts silenced, forgetting that the glowing
screen reflected on their faces was just about as rude as any noise their phone
could make. And my wife, who is just generally much easier to please, called it
the "worst production (she) had ever seen in (her) life."
Misguided attempts to be
"nice" are only part of the problem. Another component of this issue
is incompetence on the part of the reviewer. Locally-based reviewers are often
pressed into service with little or no background in theater, or understanding
of what makes a production work, or not work, as the case may be. Such
inexperience manifests itself in a review that criticizes the ingredients of a
theatrical 'meal,' without ever comprehending the important, central role of
the 'cook,' known as the director.
It is a critical subtlety
of the art form and any attempt to write about it; that a production stands or
falls on the merits of the person at the helm. In film, as proposed by the
French, this is known as the "auteur" theory, stating that a film's
director is the "author" of the piece; that what makes it pleasurable
or not is directly attributable to the director. The theory holds, I submit, to
theatrical work, as well, which is where the assumption that there's some
essential difference, related to expectations, between professional and
community theater work breaks down.
A good stage director has
to do two essential things - cast well, and assure that the basic conventions
of any staged production are met. In so doing, a good stage director can direct
less-than-professional performers to understand that acting is not just about
learning lines and navigating the stage without bumping into furniture. A good
stage director will be able to assess the production capabilities of the group
with which he/she works and tailor the production design to those capabilities
(this has to start with a company's awareness of what it can and can't do when
it comes to selecting a play to produce). Given those essential tasks, there is
no reason why a director, and through him/her, the performers and staff
associated with a production, cannot produce a highly professional show.
An understanding of this
clears the path to a journalist's keyboard, allowing him/her to assess the
quality of a production without fear that a less-than-nice review will somehow
damage the value of the effort that was put into it. If you're ever tempted, or
asked to write a theater review about a community theater production, you'll do
both the theater folk and your community a great service if you're brutally
honest. Employ the above-mentioned triad of negative words if a given
production has earned them. It'll have a way of improving the work that you
see, and elevating your community's awareness of the best that theater has to
offer.
Skip Maloney ---http://www.onstageblog.com/columns/2015/10/20/we-should-review-community-theater-productionshonestly?rq=Review+community+theatre
Chuck Pennington -- http://lifefullofcheese.com
