The Critics Say...: 57 Theater Reviewers in New York and Beyond Discuss Their Craft and Its Future by Matt Windman Page A
Authors: Matt Windman
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theater, they have to put everything else on the back burner. If they just came from the dentist, or if they just got jury duty, they have to objectively evaluate what they’re going to see—even when shows are endlessly opening in time for Tony Awards consideration, and you’re sitting through play after play. You can’t let that overabundance get to you, or make you numb, or dampen your critical faculties.
Elysa Gardner: I don’t believe in being snarky. Making easy jokes is something we’ve all done. When I’m about to write something snarky, I try to stop myself and find a better way to put it.
Howard Shapiro: You need to be open to everything. I could be a restaurant critic who hates Mexican food, but I would know when it was well-cooked and nicely presented. The same is true when covering any kind of art. Even if you don’t like a general kind of theater, you should acknowledge when it’s good and when it’s working.
Michael Schulman: Openness is the most important part of the critic’s temperament. The biggest temptation for critics is cynicism. There’s a tendency for critics to get together for martinis after a show and to just start bashing the show and dragging each other’s esteem for it down. But the best theater makes you vulnerable to it. If you fall in love with a play—like if you fall in love with a person—you let your guard down. There’s a tendency for critics to keep their guard up and prove they didn’t fall for a play. It’s much harder to say that you were completely undone by a work of art.
Jeremy Gerard: It’s an odd combination of knowing a great deal while not having any prejudices, and being open to new experiences while not abandoning your own history. I once had an experience with Neil Simon during a pre–Broadway tryout in Dallas. I was interviewing him, and he knew that I was not a fan of his from my earlier reviews. When the interview was over, he said, “If I knew you were the critic in Dallas, I wouldn’t have let the show open here. With you, I’m batting zero, so I have to believe you’ve written your review before you’ve seen the show.” And I said, “Well, I hope that whatever I write about your show, you won’t think that I’ve written the review before I go to see it, and I assure you that I haven’t written it already.” As it happens, the show in Dallas was a piece of shit. It was the all-female version of The Odd Couple .
Robert Feldberg: Critics need to be patient and willing to go along with whatever a writer and director are doing. After the first five minutes, you may think it’s going to be awful, but you need to be able to withhold judgment, sit back, and say to yourself, “I’m going to let this happen. I don’t think this is going to work, but let me go with it and try to figure out what the writer intended.” It may end up being terrible, but you at least need to give it a hearing.
Andy Propst: You have to be compassionate. You have to realize that, even on the worst of evenings, these are people who are doing their best. That’s not to say you should be namby-pamby, but a critic needs to understand that that a company of artists—be it on Broadway or in a tiny theater in the basement on the Lower East Side—did not set out to fail.
John Simon: A critic should be very thick-skinned. As I know from experience, if you are a very tough critic, people tend to be very unkindly disposed towards you in all kinds of ways. You don’t get invited to many parties. You don’t get published in many places. You don’t get a kind word from many people.
Chris Jones: To some degree, you have to be satisfied in heralding the work of others—which may sound strange to people who think that critics are egomaniacs. Getting really excited about someone else requires a subjugation of the self. Most people in the arts promote themselves, or their colleagues, or those for whom they work. A critic has to get excited about excellence not coming
Elysa Gardner: I don’t believe in being snarky. Making easy jokes is something we’ve all done. When I’m about to write something snarky, I try to stop myself and find a better way to put it.
Howard Shapiro: You need to be open to everything. I could be a restaurant critic who hates Mexican food, but I would know when it was well-cooked and nicely presented. The same is true when covering any kind of art. Even if you don’t like a general kind of theater, you should acknowledge when it’s good and when it’s working.
Michael Schulman: Openness is the most important part of the critic’s temperament. The biggest temptation for critics is cynicism. There’s a tendency for critics to get together for martinis after a show and to just start bashing the show and dragging each other’s esteem for it down. But the best theater makes you vulnerable to it. If you fall in love with a play—like if you fall in love with a person—you let your guard down. There’s a tendency for critics to keep their guard up and prove they didn’t fall for a play. It’s much harder to say that you were completely undone by a work of art.
Jeremy Gerard: It’s an odd combination of knowing a great deal while not having any prejudices, and being open to new experiences while not abandoning your own history. I once had an experience with Neil Simon during a pre–Broadway tryout in Dallas. I was interviewing him, and he knew that I was not a fan of his from my earlier reviews. When the interview was over, he said, “If I knew you were the critic in Dallas, I wouldn’t have let the show open here. With you, I’m batting zero, so I have to believe you’ve written your review before you’ve seen the show.” And I said, “Well, I hope that whatever I write about your show, you won’t think that I’ve written the review before I go to see it, and I assure you that I haven’t written it already.” As it happens, the show in Dallas was a piece of shit. It was the all-female version of The Odd Couple .
Robert Feldberg: Critics need to be patient and willing to go along with whatever a writer and director are doing. After the first five minutes, you may think it’s going to be awful, but you need to be able to withhold judgment, sit back, and say to yourself, “I’m going to let this happen. I don’t think this is going to work, but let me go with it and try to figure out what the writer intended.” It may end up being terrible, but you at least need to give it a hearing.
Andy Propst: You have to be compassionate. You have to realize that, even on the worst of evenings, these are people who are doing their best. That’s not to say you should be namby-pamby, but a critic needs to understand that that a company of artists—be it on Broadway or in a tiny theater in the basement on the Lower East Side—did not set out to fail.
John Simon: A critic should be very thick-skinned. As I know from experience, if you are a very tough critic, people tend to be very unkindly disposed towards you in all kinds of ways. You don’t get invited to many parties. You don’t get published in many places. You don’t get a kind word from many people.
Chris Jones: To some degree, you have to be satisfied in heralding the work of others—which may sound strange to people who think that critics are egomaniacs. Getting really excited about someone else requires a subjugation of the self. Most people in the arts promote themselves, or their colleagues, or those for whom they work. A critic has to get excited about excellence not coming
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