Anything about theater reviews must start with The New York
Times as the only place that can make a difference at the box office between a
hit and a flop. Which brings me to a dinner my wife and I had with Elaine May
and her partner Stanley Donen, both lovely people, and both execrating the
theater reviews in the Times, at that time by Ben Brantley and Charles
Isherwood, though it could have been just as easily anyone else. The argument
was that these reviewers couldn’t write, which I disputed.
My point was that they could write as far as style and
perhaps wit were concerned, but there remained the matter of content, the
matter of taste. They were chosen for how they wrote rather than what they
wrote, something the editors could see without seeing the shows. They saw
clever writing, but most of them had not seen the shows. Hence writing that
could as easily overestimate as underestimate. The reviewers were expected to
be a few times positive, even if their material was consistently undeserving.
My question was why reviewers approve of, even extol, manifestly terrible:shows
such a Adam Rapp’s dependably dreadful “The Sound Inside,” which Jesse Green of
the Times labeled sublime, and similar things were said in other publications.
This even for a thing that struck
me as preposterously pretentious, illogical and even ludicrous. But who am I to
contradict the Times?
The problem in the greater circulation dailies, though not
exclusively there, is incapability of justly stern judgment, sometimes indeed stinking
to please. There are several
possible reasons (though not so much at the Times), the most obvious being that
nobody reads reviews at this time when many reviewers of all disciplines are being dumped as unnecessary. But a
favorable review, deserved or not, echoes propitiously at the box office. An
unfavorable review might alienate readers, to say nothing of producers,
nowadays required in large numbers to foot the cost for even a modest show.
More profoundly, Americans like to “accentuate the
positive.” There is in them a basic goodwill that tends to meet forgivingly even
the expensiveness of today’s tickets by those who can still afford them. Make
them feel that is, never mind think. I have seldom before heard so much
laughter, so much ready applause, or seen so much indiscriminate standing and
ovating, as I encounter nowadays. Part of it is that if someone spent that much
money, he or she will persuade themselves to have had a good time come hell or
high water. But much of it also is benightedness, to use a milder term for
stupidity. It also reflects the reviewer’s captatio benevolentiae aimed at the
employer and the frequently reiterated need to sell the paper, starting with
the all-important advertisers. This is especially the case at some very shaky
publications.
Important, too, are so-called drama queens, who expect published
confirmation for their lightly earned personal enthusiasm. The great critic
Kenneth Tynan spoke of two kinds of prevalent wit—and presumably two kinds of
theatergoers--Jewish and homosexual.
Some things don’t change. Trash like “Slave Play” and “The
Sound Inside” caters to known influenceability. By the way, what does the
latter title have to do with the content? The script repeats that title in
block capitals at one point twelve times, without having to do with anything—not
even specifying the speaker. For even such plays, American hits automatically
generate European productions I can’t tell with how much success. I wonder
whether it was always so. But European hits tend almost invariably to come to
Broadway, usually from England or Ireland, e.g., “The Ferryman” and “Betrayal,”
and make it on Broadway. There are now, however, for whatever reason, few
translated imports from France.
The itinerary has reversed. It used to be from stage to
screen, now it is mostly from screen to stage, often as a musical. Two of our
best musicals, “The Band’s Visit” and “Tootsie,” are stage versions of
cinematic hits, the one from an Israeli movie, the other from long ago
Hollywood. The Broadway version of “Visit” closed already after a goodly run, at
first Off Broadway. It starred Katrina Lenk, one of the most attractive and
talented actresses of our time.
I will list here, with one exception, only the still running
shows I have really liked, starting with the aforementioned ”Tootsie.“ Ain’t
Too Proud,” a tribute to The Temptations” is good when singing and dancing,
paltry when attempting a story. “Bella Bella,” Harvey Fierstein’s very funny solo
tribute to Bella Abzug and himself. ”Betrayal,” Harold Pinter at his infrequent
best, starring the wonderful Zawe Ashton. The bilngual “Fiddler on the Roof, in
Hebrew and English. “Linda Vista,” a serious comedy by Tracy Letts, unfortunately
closing soon. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” despite a devastating review by Kyle
Smith in the September New Criterion. “The Prom,” a delightful musical that
flopped in spite of an epochal performance by Brooks Ashmanskas. There are also
a couple of shows to come, which I haven’t yet seen.
As usual, the season will have had a couple of deserved and
a few more undeserved winners, par for the course. More amazing perhaps is the
success of such trash as “Slave Show” and “The Sound Inside,” whose worthlessness
I cannot often enough proclaim. About some coming shows, I will most likely write
in a future blog entry.
Until then, let’s have a pleasant autumn nontheatrical calendar
season, the best time of year New York has to offer.
