My first reaction is to say that you shouldn't review a play that you didn't finish watching. I guess we don't hold reviewers of food to the same standard, but we would dismiss a book review if the reviewer put down the book half-finished, or a review of an album where the listener skipped half the tracks.

It's not that I wouldn't likely find the narration annoying, or that I think the second half of a play you hated was likely to change your whole opinion. More than anything it just comes off as lazy. You earn the right to trash a play in this post by actually watching the damn thing.

Maybe I'm the only one bothered by this review. I was going to leave to type this comment halfway through reading it, but it felt a little hypocritical.

I just can't think about this play without picturing the staging in "Birdman".

There's not much Frizzelle says that I agree with, but I agree with leaving at intermission if you can't stand it. Even if you're a reviewer, although I get why @1 feels like a reviewer should stay. Not many performances in any media that aren't good for an entire first half improve in the second.

I stopped reading this article before clicking "continue reading."

Haha - just kidding! I didn't read it at all!

Walking out during intermission is fine - I just loathe folks who leave right before the ending to get a jump start in getting out of the parking lot.

I could give a shit when Christopher left, I'm more offended by his panning of a show based on nothing more than his personal distaste for a style that he admittedly knew would be employed at said show. This is like attending a show at the Fifth Ave. and leaving because you don't like musicals.

If this is the quality of theater criticism we have to look forward to from The Stranger if Kiley is leaving, then we're screwed. This is worst than Mudede naval gazing about Marxism.

I do pre-walk out walk outs. I don't bother going because IT'S GOING TO SUCK.

Is Kiley leaving? Oh, please say yes.

Leaving during intermission IS the review. It's all you need to know. I'm sure it sucks. Just like I'm CONVINCED 99 Shades of Swan is TERRIBLE.

This is an articulate, fair review of what is very probably a piece of shit play, and the reviewer has done us a great service.

Thank you for leaving at intermission, and thank you for telling us about it. I consider myself warned.

ughghhhhhhhh

I think as a reviewer you are required to stay for the whole show. The second act can change your opinion. If you hate the show and must leave, don't write a review about it.

That said, I'm all for leaving crappy shows at intermission. Do it all the time. I just don't write reviews about them.

I am in complete agreement that that is a terrible way to stage Carver. Just an absolutely awful idea that does no service to the stories. I don't know whether or not someone should leave before the end of a play to review it (in general), but I do know that what you described got what it deserved in this case. I would have left too. And now that you mention it, I'm going to be walking out on more movies before they end too. I thought I was the only one starting to do that more and more. Thanks, man.

I'm not sure why people complain about reviewers leaving halfway through and then telling people they did. It's a completely legitimate experience to write about.

And it's not like every other review isn't some insider handjob bullshit anyway. I'd much rather have this honest takedown then some press-release cut and paste job or one of Kiley's acrobatic "I hated it, but they gave me cocaine, so I have to say I kind of liked it, so I'll write about the history of the play for three paragraphs and then shove something about the actual production I saw at the end" bullshit reviews.

Long live this style! Long live ditching and reviewing. And to hell with shitty theater that gloms on to someone else's work and fucks it up.

A lot of people will go see this POS simply because it's Carver's source material. And they will leave thinking that theater sucks. And they'll be less likely to take a chance on another show.

Book-It can Suck-It.

Well, you probably should have stayed until the bitter end, but I get your point: Book-It's stylized performances work sometimes and other times are totally wrong for the material. This one was obviously in that second group.

REVIEWER DIDN'T LIKE THE FIRST ACT OF A PLAY...
BUT STUCK AROUND UNTIL THE END AND STILL DID THEIR JOB.

Please send a real critic next time.

@3: Word, man.

If you are a patron, yes, leave at intermission. If it's your job to review the play, stay until the end. This article is self serving, more about the reviewer than the review. Please, stop reviewing shows if you don't actually watch them. You're taking the Sarah Palin approach with your job.

Everyone saying he should have stayed to the end has never had this job. Do you really think there would have been any more substance if he had suffered through the punishing second act? Really?

Waiter, this meat is spoiled, but I must finish every bite if I am to say so in a review later. I must consider the entire steak when I put my thoughts to paper. I owe that to my readers.

Steak was rotten, guys. He didn't have to finish it. He did the right thing.

As a patron who ALSO walked out of this play during intermission (with a companion who happily agreed with my suggestion of leaving), I can tell you that not only was I excited to see this headline, but that Christopher was right to walk out. As a lover of Carver's style I was excited to see this adaptation, but it was so awful I couldn't imagine having stayed till the finish. Walking out IS the review, as another user said, and I wholeheartedly support his decision. The only saving grace for me is that I went to a preview show, which was cheaper; if I had paid full price I would've been more than disappointed, I'd have been irate. What an overblown, un-Carver-esque experience this play was.

No objections to patrons leaving at intermission -- I've done it a few times. But for someone who claims to a culture writer and arts critic, intellectual curiosity should be a job requirement. Sorry you didn't like the conceit of the production (which any half-awake critic would have known in advance), but reducing critique to "like/don't like" and not being able to find ANYTHING to engage with is so fucking lazy. Good critics write intelligent and incisive reviews of bad shows. Do your job.

Couldn't even be bothered to review the acting or staging or anything, huh?

It seems to me that if Mr. Frizelle had anything intelligent to say about the production then the article wouldn't have lead with a trashy click bait headline and it also wouldn't have been more than 50% about how cool he is for walking out of plays he's given complimentary tickets to review, which it was. He talks far more about plays he's walked out on than the play he was charged with reviewing, proving that he merely intended to fill column inches and not to serve the Seattle public with a thoughtful review of the play. And while at the interest of full disclosure, I have worked for Book-It Rep on two separate occasions, I must say that the portion of the article that DID address the production hinged around the fact that he was upset that Book-It produced a play in the sole manner in which it produces plays... that is, his critique was purely about the adaptation and he had nothing to say about the production itself. While as a theatre professional I don't expect all reviews to be all-encompassingly glowing, I do expect a legitimate review of the components that make up a production- acting, direction, technical elements, concept, etc. I can't respect a review nor can the public trust one (be it negative or positive) that is 2 or 3 paragraphs about how he didn't watch it, a paragraph about how he read the original work and then a paragraph or two about how he didn't like the script. Not only is this a poor excuse for a review, it is simply bad journalism. It is off topic, off task, and unprofessional. It is tantamount to a child refusing to read a book because they already saw the movie. It is the same as me going to go see Waiting for Godot and just bitching about how I hate Beckett. It should shock the readers AND the staff of The Stranger that their editor-in-chief (regardless of the fact he was writing an opinion piece) is exactly what intelligent readers hate about American journalism- reporters who have nothing to say clogging up our newsfeeds with click bait and nonsense about things they weren't there to see.

I will NOT save my outrage.

You're cheating your employer, you're cheating your readers and you're cheating the artists involved by walking out and writing it. It practically shouts incompetence and an inability to separate the various elements of a production in a review.

So. Next time I'm doing a training or leading a mediation for an organization, if I don't like how they converse, I'll leave. Or if I don't like them, or I'm just disgusted with them, I'll leave halfway through the day.

And I certainly won't do any prep work, so figure out the kind of work they do.

Cause I walk out on my clients all the time. So it's okay.

On the plus side, this is the most discussion I've seen a play review get on this site ever, and probably the most play I've seen on a theater article since Kiley's Ten Things ... piece.

Judgments of "good" and "bad" are as arbitrary as they are necessary; I'm not convinced that I gain more from a work done well than from a work done badly. And since, by the time I'm halfway through a play, the only thing left that I could do with the time gained by leaving a show at intermission would be to get drunk and watch reruns of Arrow, I will generally stay no matter how deeply put out I am by the work. Whether this is a suitable policy for other patrons isn't for me to say.

But if I'm paid by a publication to review a show, and/or a producing company offered me a seat, I can't imagine why I wouldn't stay to see a piece to its fruition. It's rare (though not unheard of) for a show to turn itself around in the second act, but I have seen bad-works-that-didn't-get-any-better that did reveal more of what they were in the second half; if my job as a critic is (and I would submit that it is) to place a work in the context of how it was conceived, why it's being done here, etc., I would want to know as much as I could about how it unfolds. Indeed, I might even get more insight into what is and isn't working in the piece, to more clearly articulate whether the problem was in conception or execution, or in what part of the conception or execution. The notion that the reviewer's whole job is to offer a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" so people who can't be bothered to do their own research and make their own decisions don't misspend their ill-gotten gains is the poison that's killing contemporary arts criticism.

@19 - Maybe not this exact job, but I have worked as a music critic. I can't imagine turning in a review of a record or a concert I couldn't be bothered to finish. YMMV.

This review is garbage and you are part of a larger problem. Lots of theaters aren't giving comp's out to critics anymore because of assholes like you. A paying audience member can leave whenever they want, but you are not a patron, you are a (in quotes) "critic." Seeing the play is pretty important to your job. Your role is to provide insight to guide potential patrons. This is useless to me. I know you didn't like it, but I don't know anything beyond the barest surface level minimum as to why. Book-it has an incredible reputation, so maybe this just isn't your bag? I'd love to know actual details beyond one sentence as to why.

As you say yourself about the second act, "I'll never know." Well since I'm the reader and you're supposed to be my way of getting info as to what's up with this play, neither will I. So thanks for nothing.

You are the Kim Davis of critics. Find a new job.

Continued,

There are fabulous reviewers out there using their experience and knowledge to provide profound insight that gives feedback to the company and helps guide theater fans towards things they might like. And then there's ignorant blowhards like you giving everyone the finger, making a mockery of the profession, and helping companies decide not to give comp's to critics anymore.

I'll probably continue to think of more good points but I'm gonna stop writing now. Speaking of stopping writing, you should do that forever.

The fact that the headline starts with the word "I" tells me everything I need to know about this guy.