Monday, November 26, 2012

Course Blog 21: Wrong Review (Whitney)


Reading the reviews of Black Watch, I was struck by how much Chris Jones’ review stood out from the others. Coming from the chief theater critic at one of the largest Chicago papers, I expected his review to be a useful and thorough analysis of the performance. Instead, his review demonstrated a disappointing framework of expectations for the genre and a consequently unsuccessful report of the show we witnessed.

Jones spent two full paragraphs discussing the writing, beginning with, “[t]he writer, Gregory Burke, hit on the just the right paradox to hang his show.” In a roughly 750-word review, to spend 150 words on the script seems excessive, but Jones also wasn’t the only reviewer who used significant space to review the writing. It seems, though, that a theater review is much more successful if it reviews the specific instance of performance rather than the text of a play. Because that’s the same every time. Maybe if this was the first production in Chicago, it might behoove the reviewer to report on the success of the script to garner interest, but Jones himself reminds us that this is the play’s second visit to Chicago in only 18 months.

The element of Jones’ review that really set him apart, though, was his level of generality. Every other reviewer spent at least one or two paragraphs discussing in detail their thoughts about a particularly intense moment of the show. For instance, Chicago Theater Beat, The Sun Times, and Stage and Cinema all spent at least two sentences discussing the letters from home scene. But Jones doesn’t provide his readers with a single detailed moment of the show. His review is filled with statements like, “[s]imply put, ‘Black Watch’ is a clear-eyed look at one of the great regiments of the world.” Understandably, a short theater review can only report on choice aspects of a production, but generalizations like Jones’ seem a waste of the already precious amount of review space. Towards the very end of his review he writes, “[a]nd on this second viewing of "Black Watch," I was struck not only by how organically Hoggett makes soldiers dance, without us realizing he is doing so, but by how well the show captures existential themes.” But after failing to explain how the soldiers’ movement is “organic” or what the show’s “existential themes” are, he ends his review only two sentences later.

The tone of Jones’ review was also very different from the others and, while it may have fit well with his generalizing statements and overall style, it presented theater as an “event,” rather than providing a useful analysis of this particular performance of Black Watch. In other words, Jones’ review was more about the need for his readers to “be there” from a sort of “high society” standpoint, than it was about anything real within the performance itself. His last sentence beings with, “[a]s I headed out toward the St. Andrews pub across the street, smelling shepherd's pie,” signaling to readers that they, too, can make “an evening” out of their trip to see Black Watch and will feel a sort of cultured satisfaction in having been part of this show’s run in Chicago.

I’m struggling to reconcile Jones’ review with his position as chief theater critic for the Tribune. I may have expected something like this from a more amateur reviewer, but it does shed light on the genre and the expectations both media outlets and readers have for “successful” performance reviews. Jones is considered an expert because he’s been reviewing for the Tribune for over 15 years (according to his bio on the Tribune website). But his review of Black Watch shows no real depth of expertise in terms of actual performance analysis. Rather, what it seems to point to is a very specific kind of expertise at the level of style and tone of the performance review. Perhaps it’s more important for a theater critic to capture the expected essence of the “review” than anything essential about the performance itself?

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