Thoughtful, Well-Informed Reviews Are Crucial to the Theater Process

There’s a boisterous renaissance going on here, and most people couldn’t care less. In no other major city in America, including New York, are there more plays produced annually than in Los Angeles. Yet theater is still unappreciated and devalued as “art.”

The staging of a play is a precarious seesaw of numerous artistic and technical elements. Theater is a risk-taking live event, and its volatility adds an electrical excitement that can literally be felt by the audience. If a playwright and director are blessed with dedicated actors--as I was in the recent production of my play, “Devil’s Consort”--this frisson is experienced at each performance.

But too many times the cast outnumbers the people in the seats, and the experience dissipates as a wasted effort.

Audience apathy can partially be attributed to there being no theater center in Los Angeles. Ninety-nine-seat theaters are spread out all over the city, some in transitional neighborhoods, and often lack the convenience of a decent restaurant nearby for pre- or post-performance dining. Going to the theater, then, becomes an ordeal rather than a Friday or Saturday night date, and most Angelenos would prefer the ease and comfort of a movie theater (and a Wolfgang Puck Express next door).

Small theaters are thus extremely dependent on the local press to entice an audience to see their plays. Many newspapers review plays, but realistically, the two that have the most noticeable effect are L.A. Weekly and the Los Angeles Times. The L.A. Weekly has a dozen critics who review practically all of the new plays that premiere in Los Angeles. In contrast, The Times has eight reviewers, only four of whom regularly review 99-seat productions.

Perhaps The Times reviewers are overwhelmed by the sheer number of plays opening every week, and unless the new publisher plans on hiring additional critics, it is foolhardy to expect that the current reviewers would be able to cover everything. (I would like to know, however, what criteria are used to determine which plays are reviewed. Deciding factors at times seem to be whether the play has already received a positive review elsewhere or features a film or television celebrity.)

Generally, two theater reviews of 99-seat productions appear in Thursday’s Calendar Weekend section, and three or four reviews appear in Friday’s Theater Beat column, which focuses primarily on 99-seat theaters. But more often than not, these reviews are nothing more than a synopsis of the play’s plot. The last paragraph usually contains the actual criticism of the play, actors, direction, sets, lights and costumes. All in two or three sentences--whew! From these brief lines, it is nearly impossible for readers to get a clear sense of why it would (or would not) be worth their time and energy to see the play.

Although The Times theater reviewers should be applauded for their covering an eclectic sampling of the numerous productions in the widespread Los Angeles area, I suggest that the perfunctory manner in which reviews are written unwittingly undermines small theaters.

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The synopsis of a play should serve solely as the launching point from which the critic develops his or her commentary on the play’s theme and how it is expressed through character development. If space limitations force a review to be only three or four paragraphs, then the theater critic needs to examine the heart and soul of the play in greater depth and not focus so much on the external trappings.

The Times devotes pages to such careful critical dissection of film, but theater coverage seems shrugged off as a “necessary evil.”

New plays, however, are the life force of theater in America. Los Angeles is only the first stop on a new play’s long journey to completion. Of all art forms, theater is the most collaborative, and audiences are needed not just for ticket sales but also for the continuing development of the play. Throughout the entire nine-week run of “Devil’s Consort,” director Larry McCallister and I rewrote and restaged sections of the play based upon our observation of what was or wasn’t working in front of an audience. An excellent review in L.A. Weekly frequently filled our house, so we were working under the best of circumstances. Not every play is as fortunate, and without an audience to help guide the artistic team, the play goes no further than its local stage.

Theater criticism in the Los Angeles Times should be more than just the Cliffs Notes version of a play. It should intrigue and excite in the same way that film criticism has the power to pack movie theaters on an opening weekend. The Times and its theater reviewers need to nurture--and, in some respects, educate--L.A. audiences into understanding that their interaction is the final component that can often lift theater into the realm of art.

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