ColumnsIt’s a recurring theme of this blog just how much theatre there is out there to cover. It does mean, of course, that a theatre journalist is never short of material to write about, but there simply aren’t the nights in the week to cover it all. But as regular readers of this blog will also know, it’s not for lack of trying; and I’m far from alone.
Last weekend, I was a matinee at the Rose in Kingston and Michael Billington was also there with his wife Janine; later that day, he was also at the National’s Cottesloe to catch This House, whose press night had been postponed owing to the sad and sudden death of Phil Daniels’s wife.
And in Michael Coveney’s own blog of his theatrical activities last weekend, he wrote of also going to the Rose on Friday, This House on Saturday, and both the Union Theatre (for Call Me Madam) and a Clerkenwell warehouse (for the National Theatre of Scotland’s Enquirer) on Sunday evening.
Do we three – critics who are now in our fifties, sixties and seventies – simply see too much, or do we know no other way? I love our combined enthusiasm myself, but perhaps we could learn a thing or two from the young(er) guns, specifically 24-year-old Jake Orr who set up and runs A Younger Theatre, a blog that has turned into a website that offers a voice to other young critics beyond his own.
In a blog posting last weekend, he wrote of putting himself “on a period of leave – although hiding might be appropriate too – from theatre in order to collect myself both mentally and physically.”
There are times when I’d love to go into hiding, too, but I’m glad I’m not alone in the sense of siege we are sometimes put under: as Jake writes,
On an average day I’ll get invited to at least three shows – and this is me personally, not taking into consideration the number of shows that go directly to our Reviews Editor. This week alone AYT has been invited to more than 30 shows opening in London.
He can’t, and nor can I, be everywhere. But as he writes, “It’s just not about being able to see everything, it’s about a way of life.” But is there more to life than the theatre? Jake is hoping there is:
When your love for something becomes your life, your every moment and time, then it borders on obsession. It’s an addiction. But it’s not always a healthy addiction. If I followed up every invite I got in my inbox then I’d never see anything more than the back of someone’s head in front of me at the theatre. I’d no doubt strike up small but insignificant friendships with ushers and box office managers in the hope that they can offer me a moment of friendship and connection. What I’m saying is simple: theatre is my passion, but it can’t be my life too. There have to be borders, I have to define where my theatre passion starts, and where my life, as Jake Orr, begins.
To put it another way: I’m a young 24-year-old gay male. I enjoy theatre, seeing friends, reading, walks by the river, and the cold side of the pillow. (Yes, I’m sure I’ve used that on a dating website somewhere.)
Perhaps Jake is right and the two Michaels and me need all not to get out more, but stay in more, too. (I know my partner would welcome it!) I’ve been trying to schedule myself at least one day off a week from the theatre, but even this modest aim is regularly defeated: I was all set to take last Sunday off, when I realised that it was the only day I could take in the Paines Plough shows at Shoreditch Town Hall. I decided to at least keep part of the day free by not seeing all three and instead only going to two of them. I’m certainly glad I saw them, especially Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs which is immediately one of my plays of the year now.
But no sooner did I tweet about them than Paines Plough replied,
http://twitter.com/painesplough/status/255240903545987072
At least they asked politely. But other companies are far more insistent and persistent. Sometimes it’s my own fault: instead of a polite but firm ‘no’, I’ll say ‘maybe’ or ‘I’ll try’ and that seems to open the floodgates to a barrage of calls and e-mails to follow up whether I can turn that into a yes. A simple ‘no’ would close the door.
But Jake is right; there is a life beyond the theatre. And he’s young enough to want to find one still. I consider myself lucky indeed to have found not one but two loves of my life: my partner (now husband) and the theatre. Sometimes I may confuse just which of them I am married to. But who says I can’t be married to both? My luck is that my partner is a happy fixture at first nights now with me.
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Comments 5 comments
Let’s not get above ourselves. No one is going to die if you don’t see a show. We all put too much focus on the reviews of critics when I’d much rather hear from audiences. Critics like Michael Billington treat shows as collectors items and disregard their quality or their appeal to audiences with cries of “that was a piece of brave programming”. We should never live in a society where public money is used for vanity projects of artistic directors. They have an obligation to engage their audiences. Vanity projects should exist in the mostly dull and lowest common denominator world of commercial theatre where if it flops with an audience it folds. If we must tolerate critics they should at least be representative of our society.Report comment
Yes, I think it is important to keep a little perspective here (much as I love you Mark). It almost sounds like you’re complaining that you have to do your job every day of the week? Like there’s always more work to do? Stakeholders are pestering you to do more?…and you can’t do everything? Well, welcome to just about everyone else’s job.
On this plus side, this job that you’re forced to turn up to every day happens to be rather sociable – even if the hours are unsociable. I bet you have an easier time finding people to come to work with you (i.e. going to shows)than some of the readers who do desk jobs!Report comment
Diversity of the Arts, you appear to be both self-righteous and clueless, misunderstanding what Mark is saying and
veering haplessly off-topic. On this evidence the role of informed cultural commissar isn’t one you’re born to play.
Xander, the job of theatre critic is not sociable in the sense you watch other people act, talk and move (unless you go in for the banal performance art favored by the likes of Diversity of the Arts).
Mark is asking a pertinent question about the work-life balance of a professional critic. The fact he does not seek to definitively answer his question in this post need not mean ill-qualified amateurs should do so for him.
Best,
QuartermaineReport comment
My point Quartermaine (made rather tongue in cheek) is that when attending shows you can take friends and family who, if you have the kinds of friends and family who share your interest in theatre, are most likely to be up for ‘going to work’ with you. Lots of people have jobs which are not simultaneously opportunities to socialise – I doubt anyone would want to join someone who did a desk job, for example.
Of course, I am being flippant, I understand that a lot of a critic’s work isn’t just about seeing shows with your mates (and actually I’ve sat next to Mark when he has been on his own – I am sure you can’t always find a willing companion, particularly for performances during the day) but I was merely drawing attention to the fact that Mark was being ever so slightly moany about features/pet hates of his job which are pretty much shared by the general populous.Report comment
The trouble with reviewing is that the more you see in the theatre, the better you are at your job. A professional critic, even if he doesn’t push himself to your prolific limits, sees 200 shows a year, so by the time he hits 50, say, that’s 6000 performances in his memory bank that simply can’t be equalled by a 24-year old blogger.
A writer for a studentish website can give an honest appraisal of, say, a new production of Private Lives but he won’t have twenty others with which to compare it, or be able to offer feedback or guidance to the director how it might be done better. Assuming that’s part of the role of a critic.
I think the problem is not that critics see too much but that directors don’t go to the theatre often enough – if rehearsing continually, they don’t have so many chances, and possibly haven’t seen sufficient other versions of a show they may be reviving. The Hot MIkado at the Landor is good, but not great, and could have been so much better musically if the creative team had seen the Durham Company production at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2011, or stylistically if they’d caught the Watermill’s recent touring version.Report comment