Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

Theatre 317
generally appearing on the eleven o’clock news program,
and advance copies of the following morning’s Times,
published just blocks away. As they wait for the print
copy, some are checking their phones to see if the review
has been posted on the newspaper’s Web site. The televised
and printed reviews are examples of “instant criticism,”
and the reporters or journalists who tackle such
assignments must be very skilled at articulating their
impressions immediately.
Ultimately, the journalist’s or blogger’s review must
be limited to a brief reaction rather than a detailed or
exhaustive study. It provides a firsthand, audienceoriented
response to the production, often vigorously and
wittily expressed, and may serve as a useful consumer
guide for the local theater-going public. Writing skill
rather than dramatic expertise is often the newspaper
critic’s principal job qualification, and at many smaller
papers, staff reporters with little dramatic background are
assigned to the theatre desk. But many fine newspaper
critics throughout the years—New York’s Ben Brantley
and Los Angeles’s Charles McNulty, for example—have
written highly intelligent dramatic criticism that remains
pertinent long after its consumer-oriented function has
run its course.
More scholarly critics, writing without the deadlines
or strict space restrictions of journalists, are able to analyze
plays and productions within detailed, comprehensive,
and rigorously researched critical contexts. They
are therefore able to understand and evaluate, in a more
complex way, the achievements of playwrights and theatre
artists within any or all of the five perspectives we
have discussed. Scholarly critics aim to uncover hidden
aspects of a play’s structure, analyze its deep relationships
to social or philosophical issues, probe its various
meanings and dramatic possibilities, define its place in
cultural history, amplify its resonance with earlier works
of art, shape its future theatrical presentations, and theorize
about larger issues of art and human understanding.
Such criticism is itself a literary art, and the great
examples of dramatic criticism have included brilliantly
styled essays that have outlasted the theatrical works that
were their presumed subjects: Aristotle, Samuel Johnson,
Goethe, Shaw, and Nietzsche are among the drama
critics who, simply through their analyses of drama, have
helped shape our vision of life itself.
The scholarly critic, ordinarily distinguished by
her or his broad intellectual background and exhaustive
research, writes with a comprehensive knowledge
of the specific subject—a knowledge that includes the
work of all important previous scholars who have studied
the same materials. The professional scholar is not
content to repeat the opinions or discoveries of others but
seeks to make fresh insights from the body of literature
(play texts and productions, production records, previous
scholarship) that constitutes the field of study.
Scholarly critics tend to work within accepted frameworks
of engagement—or “methodologies”—which
develop and change rapidly in contemporary academic
life. Traditional methodologies include historical and
biographical approaches, thematic and rhetorical analyses,
studies of character and plot, examinations of
staging and theatrical styles, and detailed explications
of meaning. More advanced methodologies include
systems and theories developed since the 1970s; these
analyses tend to bypass traditional questions of history,
biography, and character to focus instead on the internal
relationships of various dramatic ingredients. Such
methodologies, which draw heavily from the fields of
philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, and literary theory,
are intellectually demanding and difficult to master;
they provide, however, stunning insights to those properly
initiated.
AMATEUR CRITICISM
Anyone who watches a play can be a critic. For students,
writing dramatic criticism for a school paper is a wonderful
way to affect—and become a part of—the theatre.
Writing a play review, in fact, is a common class
assignment, and a relatively easy way to get published
and read within your local community. Similarly, writing
a review on a blog is an easy way to share your thoughts
and impressions with a large audience; more and more,
impassioned theatre writers in the “blogosphere” have
become respected and prominent critical voices. And
more and more, people on social media express their
opinions through Facebook, Twitter, or other apps that
allow you to elaborate on your personal take to your
friends, family, and the wider public. It’s easy these days
to write a review—so you should!
Choosing one or more of the five perspectives cited
earlier in this chapter can provide a good starting point
for writing an analysis of a production.
We Are The Critics
Whether we are professional writers, students, or just
plain theatergoers, we are all critics of the theatre. As
audience members, we are a party to the theatrical experience,
not passive receptacles for its contrived effects.
The theatre is a forum of communication, and communication
demands mutual and active participation.