It is bad form to whine about a review and that is certainly not what I am trying to do about this one in the Times. But the value system underlying the review troubles me. I have no problem receiving a bad review. Many plays I have worked on have been critically received with substantially less than enthusiasm. What I do take issue with is the propagandizing of reactionary patriarchal politics in the guise of a legitimate theatre review.
Let’s examine some core tenets of the Worldview underlying this review:
- Women who enjoy sex are sluts.
- “Fuck” is unprintable.
- Theatre oriented towards a younger audience is less legitimate than theatre oriented towards a middle age audience.
- The passion of youth is worthy of mockery.
Now let’s look more closely.
1) Women who enjoy sex are sluts
Last I checked we were no longer in 1953. In fact I thought that of the many lessons we learned from the women’s rights movement was that women are in fact people. Not only are women people, they are people with the same rights and due the same respect as men.
Why do we know this attitude is propagated only against the female characters int he play? Well, as an example of ‘wry dialog’ a gay male fashion designer talks about exchanging sex for fabric. This is funny. This is healthy male sexuality. But a woman who enjoys sex is a slut. How dare a woman take over the male privilege of sexual enjoyment? /sarcasm
2) “Fuck” is unprintable
Seriously. This is absurd. Every listing has the title Artfuckers except the Times.
3) Theatre oriented towards a younger audience is less legitimate than theatre oriented towards a middle age audience.
Now this one really bothers me. Was the reviewer expecting Dinner with Friends? A quick internet search reveals that NONE of the reviews of that play for its many productions criticized it for ‘consciously writing for’ a middle-class, middle-aged white audience. In fact if such criteria were subject for legitimate criticism, then the lion’s share of plays produced would have that criticism.
True the play does not pander to the values of mainstay theatre production. It does not make itself easy for middle-aged middle-class white value structures. Is this reason to criticize it?
Dinner with Friends and its ilk hold little to no interest for me as an audience member. The value systems propagated in the plays have no bearing upon my life or experiences. Yet, this does not make them illegitimate works for their intended audience. In fact, they are right for their intended audience precisely because I have no way of relating to the characters or situations therein.
I have worked on many plays whose value structures do not reflect my own. Not that they are opposed, but that they simply follow a parallel if not tangential tack. I find these works to be interesting because I must learn to appreciate another value system. I ask questions like, “What is the play trying to achieve?” and “Does it reach those goals?” These feel to me more reasonable questions than “Does this reinforce my personal value structure, because if not then it is worthless?”
4) The passion of youth is worthy of mockery.
This last point comes in from an oblique angle. The given circumstances that set in motion the events of the play are a drug overdose by one of the characters. This is precipitated by a scathingly negative review of the characters work in Artforum. For a young man in his early twenties, obsessed with his art, passionate about the work, this could and probably would to many seem to be the final statement about his as both person and artist.
The play of course outlines the events leading up to this rather drastic action and shows the review to be a proximate rather than ultimate cause. The Times reviewer makes his charge in a pseudo-selfdeprecatory fashion asking “Who tries to kill himself over one bad review these days, when blog- and e-mail-fueled word of mouth has sapped the power of old-media critics?” While this is a bit of an overstatement, just as the character Owen’s actions are a bit of an overreaction, the generally full houses at the perfomances seem to prove it somewhat correct.
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Backstage has another review for those interested.
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I have probably now doomed myself to a life of poor reviews for writing this. Or at least never receiving mention in reviews. I suppose time will tell.
Tags: artfuckers, patriarchy, reviews
What a crap review. That made me mad, and it wasn’t even my show!