Actors vs. Critics Drama Devolves to Critic vs. Critic

One of the great failings of most tyro drama critics is the inability to distinguish between the characters’ sentiments and those of the playwright. For a critic suffering from this kind of myopia, Shakespeare would be condemned for being a sly Machiavel because he wrote “Richard III” or a sinister assassin because he penned “Macbeth.”

Michael Phillips implies in his review of “Stage Fright” at the Malibu Stage (“ ‘Stage Fright’ Scares Away a Fun Opportunity,” June 21) that the play is a denunciation of actors (“he takes aim at the actors . . . elocutionary-minded fuds”) and that the author is making “cheap, nasty fun” at their expense, whereas one of the major points of the piece is to pit the actors’ integrity and commitment to their art against the abuses and injustices inflicted upon them by critics. The play, by the way, comes down on neither side.

Obtuse criticism apart, Phillips is also guilty of some pretty slovenly journalism. In a three-character cast that contains long-established performers Nan Martin, Alan Mandell and Jeremy Lawrence, there is not a word about these actors’ actual performances; “sniveling panache” is the sum total of his critique, and it is intended to be shared between all three. Phillips is clearly a minimalist--if by minimalist one means minimal insight and the minutest amount of acumen.

And walking into L.A.’s newest theater and Malibu’s first professional playhouse, which has been five years in the making, you would think a critic on one of California’s leading newspapers might allude, even in passing, to the nature of the space and its prospects for the community. But Phillips is too busy stropping his razor to realize he is bleeding from half a dozen nicks.

Phillips gives himself away in his second paragraph when he indulges in some “cheap, nasty fun” of his own by pointing out that I am not only the author and director but also the artistic director of the theater in question, as if that kind of hubris is mortifying and people like Moliere, Bertolt Brecht, Roger Planchon and Alan Ayckborn should be ashamed of themselves. Smoldering beneath his snideness is a mixture of bitterness and contempt that a critic should have the audacity to wear two, even three, hats.

Finally, he asks naively, “Where’s the fun in this exercise?” The answer, which is apparent to virtually everyone except the befogged critic of the L.A. Times, is in exploring the dialectical conflict that has traditionally existed between artists and critics.

But to appreciate that, one needs to be something of either an artist or a critic, and Phillips fails on both counts.

Charles Marowitz is a director and writer whose plays have been performed on Broadway, in London and throughout Europe. He was drama critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and has written numerous books on theatrical subjects. He lives in Malibu.