Did ‘Lobby Hero’ Critic Have an Agenda?

Jan Breslauer is a friend of mine. She can write. As a Times feature writer, sometime critic, theater professor and now producing director of the Falcon Theatre, she knows theater’s do’s and don’ts. Which is why I found her mean-spirited review of Kenneth Lonergan’s “Lobby Hero” (Calendar, Feb. 25), now playing at South Coast Repertory, so baffling.

This is not about a negative notice. Over 38 seasons and 371 opening nights, SCR has collected its share. But Times critics from Cecil Smith to Michael Phillips respected the time and talents of the artists involved in the shows they panned, just as the artists and people on the producing side respected the critics’ right to their (negative) opinions.

This is the most vicious review SCR has ever received: an unmitigated attack on the playwright, director and cast, and on SCR’s motives for producing the play. For example:

Breslauer uses four paragraphs to defame “This Is Our Youth,” an earlier Lonergan hit that ran off-Broadway for a year. Her proof for its flaws is that it has yet to have an L.A. production. As a producing director, she should know this has more to do with Lonergan and his agent getting the right offer than any lack of interest in the play. She says it’s “easily castable”--as if Mark Ruffalos grew on trees. Lonergan’s protagonists are uncommon and complex and require uncommon actors.

Breslauer calls those who embraced “This Is Our Youth” “the intelligentsia” and “limousine liberals,” while the playwright himself is “chichi,” “hot” and an “it” boy.

Lonergan is an original who puts the moral quandaries and crises of conscience, normally given in plays to the privileged, into the lives of contemporary young commoners. The indifference of his slackers is a cover for characters who are overpowered by circumstance and yearn for values that are timeless.

But we get none of this from Breslauer, who is fixed on turning lines in a self-conscious, too-hip style: The play is a “drone-on-athon” or “verbal lard.” She’s so busy minting zingers that she neglects to listen to a story about lonely nighthawks resolutely filling silences. Nor does she report its concerns to her readers--which was her job.

What coin is there to be mined by sliming Lonergan? More of this anon.

Besides, there’s plenty of slime for all. For Kevin Corrigan, who is advised to stick to film, and T.E. Russell, who is not “surprising.” Russell plays William, the righteous oak that won’t bend; his corruption is the play’s constant--no surprise there, nor should there be.

Corrigan is a proven film talent in his first stage lead, a brilliant intuitive actor playing the title anti-hero in a unique, understated way. Audiences listen to him, even if Breslauer didn’t. More fortunate were Simon Billig, dismissed as “usually better,” and Tessa Auberjonois, forgotten after being mentioned as present.

Breslauer positively savages director Olivia Honegger, a bright young woman in her first big assignment after years of prepping for it. Her production, praised elsewhere, speaks for itself.

The reviewer is entitled to her negative opinion of Honegger’s work. What Honegger doesn’t deserve is needless snide trashing: “seems to have cut class on Directing 101.” Again, why so vicious?

Breslauer begins her review by impugning SCR for producing a play by a “hot” writer, the implication being we jumped on his bandwagon. SCR had championed and developed “Lobby Hero” in a public reading in January 1999, before Lonergan went platinum. The play had been promised elsewhere, so SCR waited and scheduled it when it became available.

Breslauer’s kind of vituperative review does the theater no good. It makes actors working in film and television wary of returning to the stage. It bolsters the arguments of their agents to refuse a relatively low-paying, high-risk commitment that takes them away from more lucrative media markets. It encourages writers such as Lonergan to forsake the art form that trained him for the one that now lionizes him and will make him wealthy--film.

When we heard from The Times that Jan would be reviewing “Lobby Hero,” it gave us pause not only because she is the producing director of another Southern California theater but also because, in late spring 2000, she visited me at SCR to discuss the possibility of working here. How small-minded of us, we decided. Now, of course, we’re having second thoughts. And perhaps Breslauer, given those associations and the vehement nature of her response to “Lobby Hero,” simply should have recused herself.

But why was her notice so mean-spirited?

Breslauer returns to reviewing with this notice. Trying to pants the new Emperor, Kenneth Lonergan, certainly got everyone’s attention. Whether or not that pulled Lonergan down, it can give the illusion of elevating Breslauer to his equal.

Former Herald-Examiner critic Jack Viertel was recruited by Broadway’s Jujamcyn after attacking its praised production of “Big River.” Frank Rich and Alex Witchel gained spotlights in the New York Times by ripping Broadway icons. It’s a gambit that works.

Did Breslauer serve herself more than the theater with her “Lobby Hero” review? We’ll see.

Editor’s Note: The Times was aware of Breslauer’s position at the Falcon Theatre and should have identified her as such in her review of “Lobby Hero.”

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Jerry Patch is the dramaturge and a longtime company member at South Coast Repertory.