Theatre reviewing is said to be in crisis, struck by the double blow of reduction (to arts funding) and disruption (to media ecologies). It is this narrative that Duška Radasavljević’s excellent edited volume sets out to examine, confirm and – in some cases – contest. Impressive in its scope, the volume consists of seventeen chapters organized into four sections that cover theatre criticism from eight countries over more than one hundred years.
The first writer to confirm the crisis is George Hunka, who argues that American theatre criticism had its heyday immediately after the Second World War. Since then, criticism has become a ‘triumph of style over substance’ (p. 39). This story is symptomatic of what Mark Brown terms ‘cultural miserablism’, which is typically accompanied by the complaint of ‘cultural relativism’ or the democratization of opinion (pp. 177–83). Reports of the critic's death have been exaggerated, according to Brown, since there are still ‘experienced, knowledgeable, and passionate specialist[s]’ reviewing (p. 181). The difference is that they are now ‘initiator[s] of public discussion’ rather than ‘all-powerful arbiter[s]’ (p. 181). Yet Vasco Boenisch's chapter demonstrates that critics often underestimate their cultural influence while also overestimating their readers’ theatrical expertise.
Other authors seek to complicate the crisis narrative via history, media and in some cases histories of media. Kristina Matvienko and Valda Čakare draw on Russian and Latvian archives respectively, to argue that there has never been an easy time to be a critic. In both countries, the political context confined reviewers to ‘ideological’ modes of criticism that focused on the work's intended ‘message’ (pp. 61, 64–5, 89, 107). With the fall of the Iron Curtain, critics slowly but surely moved to a ‘theatrical’ mode that attended to the embodied event (pp. 54–5). In the twenty-first century, criticism in both countries has become more ‘sociological’ (pp. 62, 87, 95). In Russia, a second school of ‘interdisciplinary’ criticism has also emerged (p. 96). There is little overlap between the two but they are bound by a commitment to the ‘contemporary’ in an increasingly conservative country (p. 95). In this sense, reviewers are also advocates, performing ‘intellectual solidarity’ (p. 95).
The issue of solidarity versus objectivity, or proximity versus distance, reappears throughout. Margherita Laera argues that, unlike their anglophone counterparts, Italian critics have never sought objectivity but have instead pursued a mode of ‘militant criticism’ that involves ‘getting your hands dirty’ through producing and publishing as well as reviewing (pp. 99–100). This tradition continues today, but whereas it was previously a ‘political statement,’ it is now a ‘material necessity’ (pp. 106–12). Similarly, Maddy Costa offers her account of ‘embedded criticism’ where she worked within a theatre company and her writing became less journalistic and more detailed, digressive, personal and poetic (p. 203).
If the distance between artist and critic is collapsing, then so too is the distance between critic and academic. William McEvoy argues that theatre criticism and theory have become increasingly similar and that scholarly trends such as ‘performative writing’ (p. 293) have produced ‘performative criticism’ (p. 304). However, the academy does not always support staff who write reviews, as Jill Dolan notes in her chapter on her blog The Feminist Spectator (p. 197). Andrew Haydon's chapter adds further nuance, tracing the history of online theatre criticism from its establishment, through its evolution, to its current state (pp. 139–46).
Media are also shifting our methods. Comments, argues Michelle MacArthur, should be reconsidered as ‘crowdsourced criticism’ and potential archives (p. 264). Elsewhere there are surveys, semi-structured interviews and round tables, as well as Mark Fisher's amusing analysis of fictional theatre critics (p. 155–69). The book concludes with four more speculative pieces, including Alice Saville's illustrated review of a children's show and Megan Vaughan's review written entirely in emoji.
Theatre Criticism is part of a reassessment of reviewing within theatre and performance studies. It consolidates and augments thinking that has previously been scattered across various journal issues, articles and pedagogical volumes. In doing so, it brings the small but growing field of ‘reviewing studies’ into focus and adds diversity by including varied non-anglophone case studies and voices. Lastly, and more broadly, it makes a valuable contribution to debates across the humanities about the rise of the amateur, the fall of the critic, the limits of critique, and the performativity of it all.
