Negativity

I did an email interview with a prominent playwright this week. In reading up on him I came across a story about him punching someone who had said some negative things about him. The original story I read said that he hit the guy because he had written a negative review, but the playwright insisted that the reviewer had actually made some racist remarks and that was why he'd popped him. Fair enough.

Either way, I thought I'd ask what he thought about reviewers, and his answer was "I haven't read a review in years because quite simply most reviewers can't tell the difference between the written work and the performance."

Is it just me, or is that answer a bit bigger than it first seems? In reviewing, aren't we looking at everything? We're listening to the written work and we're watching the performance. It's quite possible for an excellent script to be mangled by bad actors, but you'd probably still recognise that the dialogue was good.

And then I wondered if he wasn't somehow blaming any bad reviews on the performance. Like someone giving a bad review should be able to tell, if they had half a brain, that it wasn't the script's fault. Weird, if that's what he was saying, because he works with top flight people.

I thought it was an interesting comment anyway. Wonder what most reviewers will think about it.

Went to the opening of a play last night. Pretty bleak stuff. Good overall, just bleak. Right towards the end a pretty important prop fell down. Huge curtain pulled right across the stage just completely fell down and fucked things up. Someone was doing some death stuff or something and suddenly the audience is stifling sniggers and the actors are trying not to smirk. Funny shit.

I got an email from the company director who was one of the actors on stage at the time. She said she really wanted me to write an honest review even if it is negative. Said she saw me in the audience but didn't come out after the show because she was in hiding. Said she'll still talk to me even if I write a bad review. I think she was amused by it (the curtain played a huge part in her final scene - a death scene) but also thought it was about the worst thing that could have happened.

I thought that was a really cool thing to do. Some people are just cool in small, really cool ways. She gave me the greenlight to rip the shit out of the play, so that's what I did.

(Kidding).