As the sadistic old editor who sent you to Bullshot Crummond, Paul, I must disagree with this:

…the thing is, it was amateur theater. As soon as I walked into the theater, I realized what had happened: I was a critic who was about to review a play that probably shouldn’t be reviewed.

…it was, quite simply, not a professional production and it should have been left for more informal reviews like word of mouth. And I felt bad about having to review it. Hence: Regret.

It is among the critic’s unpleasant duties to protect the public against crap—in restaurants, theaters, movies, the works. If people don’t know something’s crap, they might unwittingly spend their money on it and really regret it. It’s up to us to help them understand what they’re getting into.

The Stranger: We sit through it so you don’t have to. (And, occasionally, flee at intermission ourselves.)

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

8 replies on “re: Regrets Regrets”

  4. Youngstown is a horrible venue, not even really a theatre. That said, it’s not the worst, there are “professional” theatres in Seattle with worse digs. I’d take Youngstown over Stone Soup any day, and at the Balagan you can hear the restaurant overhead.

  6. I didn’t think it was possible for anyone at The Stranger to be more of an asshole than Paul in his last post. Thanks for raising the bar.

  7. Christ, sometimes the Stranger sends a “professional” reviewer to a “professional” musical performance, and the reviewer mistakes the open act for the headliner and leaves at intermission and writes the review regardless.

  8. I was thinking about this post, and thought I remembered something Dave Eggers had said about “failed” art. Just found it – and, lo and behold, it was from an interview in The Stranger:

    Hatred of writers: odd concept. Why hate a writer, or his or her work? (Asking not just the interviewer, but — squinting to see those in the back rows — all those seated): What makes us so angry toward these people? Completing a book is so arduous and bewildering and near-impossible that I have to say that when you complete a book yourself, your respect for anyone who has also reached the end of that mine-riddled trek increases exponentially.

    Much in the way that having a baby changes one’s perspective on life, work, professional sports, etc., working on and ideally finishing… a book, or play, or album, or whatever, immediately shoves you into a place where you stand in reverence to all who finish things, who bring to fruition something they’ve imagined. Thinking you could probably do something as well as someone else is worlds apart from actually trying to do it. Then, actually completing that project is worlds apart from simply trying it.

    It goes on. A great (re-)read. Maybe some decade, The Stranger’s own critics will take it to heart.

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