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Theatre Reviewing: Performance versus Criticism.1

2009; University of Arkansas Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

2374-6629

Kate Wilkinson,

Theatre and Performance Studies

In 2004 while researching performance history of The Tempest, I interviewed actor Sir Derek Jacobi at Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. As an academic researcher working on performance, some of my questions were grounded in academic criticism of Shakespeare and performance, and actor's engagement with this. Jacobi's responses my questions highlighted an uneasy relationship which exists between academic study of Shakespeare and work of performance. Both critic of performance, whether an academic literary critic or a theatre reviewer, and theatre practitioner are interpreters of text, however Jacobi suggested a distinction between two, they're page and I'm stage, and it is this distinction that I want explore in this article. Jacobi talked about actor thinking, feeling, speaking, reacting his way into a role, suggesting a and breathing interpretation of a text. It would seem that any critical attempt capture this might deaden it in process, an idea that has created tension between practitioners and writers throughout history of theatre criticism. The theatre review has changed a lot over past 200 years: reviews and reviewers are now very much taken for granted (Auchincloss 571). Different types of theatre reviewer each have a different purpose for their work which is governed by publication and expected authence for which they write (Billington). The history of theatre reviewing is largely unexplored, but it is a means by which consider tensions that have existed and continue exist between performance, reviewing and literary criticism. In this article I will take theatre criticism as an umbrella term cover academic theatre criticism and newspaper based theatre reviewers, using my interview with Derek Jacobi address how performer views and engages with both reviewer and literary critic. The first English newspapers were published during first half of seventeenth century, although it was 1 50 years before theatre reviews were regularly printed (Gray 1). The development of reviewing was slow: C. H. Gray pinpoints Renaissance as beginning of development of a dramatic theory and critical rules that would inform early review writers and beyond (Gray 6). The rules included concept of three unities along with taste, decorum and poetic justice, and were yardstick by which reviewers, for a long period after Renaissance, would judge productions (Gray 7-10). Rules were starting point for any reviewer, as to criticize was ... affirm certain principles and then apply them rigorously drama (Gray 14). And, an extent, this concept still applies today: theatre director Peter Brook in his 1968 work The Empty Space describes a vital reviewer as the critic who has clearly formulated for himself what theatre could be - and who is bold enough throw this formula into jeopardy each time he participates in a theatrical event (Gray 37). Brook's argument delineates communities of theatre practitioners and theatre reviewer: reviewer is someone from outside who participates in theatre's event. Brook's language, through telling reader what critic should be doing supports Jacobi's idea which 1 have mentioned above and will explore more thoroughly later, that theatre is living and critic dead. The suggestion of having a firm, immovable set of rules by which judge theatrical experience would seem confirm this. That this idea comes in both instances from theatre practitioners is noteworthy. Shakespeare was not always interested in following rules and consequently caused a problem for early reviewers. It is possible that Restoration adaptations of his plays were an attempt bring them into line with neo-classic rules of drama, (Gray 18-19) although Wardle also suggests that reviewers made al lowances for him because he was Shakespeare (Wardle 18-19). …