Village Squire, 1976-07, Page 32So, he related, he developed a technique
over the years in which he said whatever good
things he could about a production at the
beginning of the review, then slid the bad
things in afterward, like putting medicine
down with sugar. It often meant that people
reading the reviews would have conflicting
ideas of how he liked the show, depending on
how perceptive they were.
Critics, are also important in that they set
some sort of standard• by which different
theatres can be judged. Like the school
teacher and the end -of -year test, we may not
like the results, but some sort of judgement
must be made. And the critic can be a helpful
tool in improving theatre quality, if he has
won the respect of both his audience and the
theatre community. James Murphy, artistic
director of the Huron Country Playhouse said
he had been reviewed many times by Mr.
Whittacker and always learned something
from the criticism. '
The problem is, where do theatre people
and audiences go when critics change and
standards with them. Part of the uproar in
Toronto circles recently can be attributed to
the fact that there have been wholesale
changes in the reviewing positions at the two
largest papers in the past year. The standards
of the old reviewers, Whittacker, and Urjo
Kareda of the Star, were known. The new
critics had different standards, and no one
knew just where they stood. So theatres like
Theatre Passe Muraille which could virtually
do no wrong with the old reviewers, suddenly
cbuld do no right with the new. Passe
Muraille's West Show was criticized as the
"same old stuff". It's Horsburgh Scandal
was tarred by the same brush even though it
was a remarkable break from the recent
tradition of the group, including using a name
star in Don Harron. When the play made its
premier in Blyth Memorial Hall it was
immensely popular with audiences and critics
of the local press. It was loved by nearly
everyone I've talked to in theatre who saw it.
But the critics hated it. In Toronto with more
and more theatre competing for fewer dollars
in a time of economic restraint, the role of the
critic has become more important as many
theatres found out last winter when the press
turned against them. Still, Cahadian critics
don't have nearly the clout that critics do in
New York. The big daddy of theatre critics
there, Clive Barnes can exercis the power of
life and death over shows there. When
Canadian Cliff Jones' Rockabye Hamlet hit
Broadway, it was doing well through
previews until the opening night review of
Barnes sealed its fate. He called it in one of
those excesses of critical writing, a second
rate product of a second rate mind, as if he as
god of the theatre had the right to decide who
had'a first rate and who a second rate mind.
But the word was out. The box office which
had been doing well, suddenly dried up.
Jones went home to Canada to lick his
wounds.
Perhaps, seeing the excesses and the
values of critics, there should somewhere be a
critic to criticize critics, to keep them in line
and create a common standard. What, one
wonders, would a Clive Barnes or a Doug
Bale do if they were put under the scapel as
they so often put actors, writers and directors
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