Criticism Is Dead. Long Live Criticism!

William F. McDermott
Plan Dealer Theater Critic 1921-1958
37 years, bitches.
In August, the Plain Dealer began a national search for a new "full-time theater critic" which has become something of a joke among the writers there. They have flown a few potential candidates into town for interviews, and the paper even sent representatives to PlayhouseSquare to meet with members of that organization -- the nation's second-largest performing arts facility -- and its newest tenant, Cleveland Play House (two major advertisers) to reassure them that there would be soon be someone on staff whose main responsibility would be to cover the theater beat in Cleveland.

Not that the theater scene was the main responsibility of Tony Brown. He, like everyone else in their shrinking bullpen of writers, was recently called upon to cover ... well, everything. Anything, really. Brown was also writing travel pieces and covering the trial of a serial killer at the time he was let go. The Plain Dealer isn't in the business of creating paid positions any more, buying out contracts from writers left and right, and shrinking benefits for everyone who remains. Besides, since June they have gotten along just fine handing out assignments to fashion editor Andrea Simakis, columnist and reporter Joanna Connors, can't-live-with-him-can't-fire-him columnist Donald Rosenberg, and freelancer Christine Howey.

In July Bob Abelman, critic for the News-Herald assured me that:

The theatre critics who write for smaller, more localized newspapers have and will continue to cover Cleveland theatre. The papers and their websites and blogs may not have the reach of the PD, but they are well positioned to offer the same coverage--and more--and take more creative risks. Cleveland theatre is being covered.

The paper Mr. Abelman writes for, the News-Herald, originates out of Port Clinton, and has a circulation of 2,910. However, spare-time critics like him and Roy Berko reach three times that number posting their work on blogs and through reposts on Fred's List.

It is, in fact, the online posting of reviews (and everything else) that has brought us to this pass. If the past fifteen years have proved anything, it is that no one ever bought newspapers to read the columnists. Well, they did, decades ago. But the idea that people would spend money to get any one specific person's opinion on anything has been a lesson hard-lost. Newspapers were purchased for the want ads and when these became freely available on Craig's List, subscriptions to papers like the Plain Dealer cratered.

Do we need a well-paid, professional, educated, savvy, full-time theater critic in Cleveland? The audiences should demand one (or at least one) because they write better, they establish long-term relationships with artists and companies, they can afford (time-wise) to see everything, to have the long-view, to judge growth (and its opposite) and to present a point of view and a consistent personality that the reader can judge themselves. And as Mr. Brown often reminded us, he was writing for his readers, after all, and not for the artists.

Do the theater companies need a full-time critic? Hmn. Tricky. Like a lot of artists, I am concerned that lack of attention to the arts by the media will kill interest in the theater. But media does still pay attention to theater -- a lot of attention. However, it is the new media, the personal media, the websites, blogs, and social networks through which theater companies connect with their audience, in a personal and sometimes exciting way.

Great Lakes Theater recently reported a 11% increase in ticket sales for the 2011-12 season. Eleven percent! Without a full-time theater critic at the Plain Dealer.

Here's the big question ... Why do you see plays? Why do choose this play or that play to see? Did you read a critical review? See an advertisement? Get something in the mail? Or was it because a friend recommended it, someone sent you a YouTube video, you saw a friend of a friend's comment on Facebook?

Does it matter, after all, who it is that recommends a show, so long as somebody does?

UPDATE: For the past several years, the most-awesome, daily, local NPR arts program "Around Noon" has started the New Year with a week-long series looking back at past year in the arts. Each day, for the entire program, critics and journalists are invited to comment on the year in books, dance, music, moves and theater. In Tony Brown's absence, "Around Noon" chose not produce a Best of Theater 2011 program.

Holding Our Tongue @ CPT

Live Blogging

5:04 pm
Winding down now. Can I just say Faye Sholiton bathes in awesomeness?

And can I say how much I love the fact that all of Ozen Yula's preconceptions about Cleveland came from Stranger Than Paradise?

4:49 pm
The big issue of censorship this afternoon, as put forth by Ms. Shamieh, is how large non-profit professional theaters get government and corporate funding by making multiculturalism in their mission statement, and then producing absolutely no work from marginalized voices.

"The community with the most to say have the least resources to say it."

4:20 pm (It's 4:20 time.)
We are in the midst of a dynamite panel discussion with Ari Roth (Theatre J), playwright Betty Shamieh and David Faux (Dramatist Guild.) I will get this stuff down ... but we're back now and Eric Coble is talking about feelings.

I will say this ... Image of the morning; white academic bemoaning the impotence of modern American theater, and Raymond Bobgan enthusiastically countering that this moment in American theater is the most exciting, embracing as it does the widest possible amount of multicultural work in our nation's history.

2:25 pm
Elaine Feagler is a beautiful human being. That was hilarious! And surprisingly moving. I think I was expecting something, I was not expecting to be moved, no, not at all. And I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever be moved almost to tears by words coming out of the mouth of Drew Narten.

I mean, come on.

Good God, there is a quorum of Playwrights' Unit people, right there, I should say hello.

1:30 pm
Amazing - even our lunch at Gypsy became a round table discussion on censorship, with representatives from the Play House, Ensemble Theatre and GLTF (that would be me) as well as various playwrights ... and Fred.

In moments they will begin a staged reading of one of Yula's works.

11:04 am
Ozen Yula described in greater detail the controversy generated by his play Lick But Don't Swallow which was to open in Istanbul following his arrival in Cleveland this past winter. When a secular paper announced its premiere, describing it in one sentence as a play about an angel that becomes a porn star, things got difficult.

The online paper (yes, they have those in Turkey) received hundreds of comments. People who had of course not seen this play, as it was not yet close to even opening yet but was merely in rehearsals, piled on, expressing their indignation, and proclaiming that "something must be done." In Turkey, when someone demands that something be done, especially on religious grounds, often something is done. Yula reminded us that in America when cranks leave messages on the Internet, no one does anything.

Except when they do, of course.

He also described the young men of his country, who are in large numbers unemployed, who spend time in coffee houses, jacked up on (presumably) Turkish coffee, who are often stirred into action when "something is happening." A large number of young men showed up at the theater, asking when this play would open. A little menacing.

Interestingly, later in the discussion, Michael Mauldin from CSU was lamenting the lack of interest in live theater, on a political or important level, in the United States. He recounted the time in 1989 when Do The Right Thing had NYC Mayor Dinkins pleading with the public not to act upon the images they saw in Spike Lee's film. Presumably he was speaking to certain young men, also unemployed in large numbers.

Idle hands, everywhere, are what we fear.

During an otherwise uncontroversial discussion on censorship, Tony Brown was asked whether the Rosenberg case had a "chilling effect" on his work as a critic. He did not answer this question, choosing instead to explain how Rosenberg's situation was unique, leaving one to draw their own conclusions.

9:13 am
Things getting underway. I am impressed with the sheer amount of artists attendant this early on a Saturday morning. Playwrights! Playwrights! Playwrights! Margaret says she needs to talk to me about blogging because I am the "blogger extraordinaire." She just said that to me. Just now.

If you are free, come down to Cleveland Public Theatre, there is a panel discussion with Ozen Yula until 11 am featuring Gary Garrison (Dramatists Guild), Dr. Michael Mauldin (CSU), Tony Brown (Plain Dealer) and Mr. Yula.

For all the kids out there - yes, Fred is here.