Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Anonymous Review Squad, in
which artists review their peers’ work. This experiment (which we hope
to repeat in other sections of the paper) was inspired by artists who
complain that critics are unqualified to hand down judgment because they have never made art.
That complaint is pure bunk, of course, for three reasons: (1) It’s
a provincial and solipsistic argument that assumes one needs to
be a member of a group to say anything intelligent about that group.
Which, to pick three random examples, would mean that Alexis de
Tocqueville had nothing intelligent to say about Americans, Dan Savage
has nothing intelligent to say about hetero sex, and all historians are
wasting their time. (2) Many critics first become interested in art by
making art and, for whatever reason, later switch to writing about it.
(In my case, I learned in college that making newspapers was more
exciting and rewarding than making plays.) (3) All good critics are
students of the arts: They watch closely, ask questions, research
finances, read art history, and are on familiar terms with artists and
administrators, big fish and little fish. Good critics, by not being
stuck in one little weed patch of an arts ecosystem, have a
bird’s-eye view of the whole. They have perspective.
However! That artists-know-more-than-critics complaint is
stubborn—so why not run an experiment to see if it’s even partly
true? Why not give the people what they want?
And here we are.
The inaugural ARS is: Jerry Manning (director and producing
artistic director of the Seattle Rep), Allison Narver (director
and former artistic director of the Empty Space Theatre), Kirk
Anderson (actor and drummer for the theater-garage-art-band
“Awesome”), Jennifer Zeyl (designer, director, founding member
of the Washington Ensemble Theatre, and Stranger Genius Award winner),
Mandie O’Connell (actor, writer, codirector of Implied Violence,
Stranger Genius Award winner). Any one of those five could have written
any one of the three reviews running this week.
Anonymity carries liabilities: A critique is less credible when it
isn’t attached to a name. But theater is a tiny town, and we
wanted to give these artists a critical voice without the attendant
fear of professional reprisals. Reporters grant their sources anonymity
when what they say might jeopardize their physical or professional
well-being. Artists who criticize artists have a reasonable fear of
jeopardizing both.
What will happen? Will artists be all
empathetic to and soft on
their fellow artists (at the expense of the audience)? Will they go
at each other with hatchets? Will they show up our paper’s critics
as know-nothing blowhards?
Read the first-ever Anonymous Review Squad and find out. 
I, for one, am excited to see/read how this goes! Kudos for trying something new!
The critic digests the experience and hands it to the spectator to confirm his own conclusion. The spectator, conditioned to be told what to see, sees what he is told, or corrects the critic, but in any case sees in relation to the response of the critic.Unfortunately,
none of this has to do with the real work of the artist.
Joe Chaikin, The Presence of the Actor, 1972
That’s so John. =) And so dead on.
The part of the “‘boo-hoo’ the critics are to blame” tirades that I dislike most: the apparent lack of responsibility for producing stronger work that, for example, connects storytelling to its society (i.e. Make good work that critics will be forced to notice). Instead the same energy and space is filled by an equal mass of entitlement and scape-goatage. And these whiner readers add a garrulous din that smothers the quiet contentment some of us have with the current newspaper-theatre relationship.
In my mind, theatre criticism (or any newspaper critiques or advice) is an entertainment of its own, an art as separate from theatre as poetry or sculpting, connected to theatre by a mere thread, an indirect and single thread; that some audience members might also be readers. Theatre-goers go to theatre, weekly rag readers read fun articles. The readers can become theatre-goers, and vice versa. But to demand the critic kowtow to theatre makes no reasonable sense: the critic is on the wrong end of the food chain – they aren’t making or breaking shows, the shows are. Critics are often reactive to what theatre artists send downstream. Sometimes it’s sewer. Sometimes it’s gold.
Arguably, one critic, or at least identified critics, makes more sense: once the critic establishes their voice (Brendan values intrepid work & interpersonal subtext onstage, Misha has a calm, nuturing cultural view, Longenbaugh likes to see/hear good writing & hearing himself talk…) then the readers can pick and choose which one best matches THEIR tastes, and can occasionally rely upon that critic (if they actually fear taking a chance so much as to require reading reviews first before going out to theatre).
While I appreciate the top-notch panel that the Stranger has assembled, I personally can’t wait for this little round of ‘fan service’ to be over so we can get *gasp* back to journalism.