The Difference of How a Theatrical Critic and a Reviewer Look at a Performer

2357 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Subjective perception in art

I. Introduction

In today’s society, we are flustered with a variety of artistic performances, which are both praised and rejected by others. In a recent 2011 article by Bert Cardullo, he explains the two main types of persons whose main jobs are to look over these artistic performances and give their personal feedback. “It is certainly true that the critics—those persons whom the dictionary describes as “skilled in judging the qualities or merits of some class of things, especially of literary or artistic work”—have long harbored murderous thoughts about the condition of our drama, but their ineffectuality as public executioners is legendary. The reviewers, by contrast, come close to being the most loyal and effective allies the commercial theater could possibly desire” (Cardullo, 2011). Looking into this quote, it demonstrates that critics take their job to the extent where they aren’t afraid to strike hard at a particular piece. As for a reviewer, they will be more “sugar coating” about performances and offer helpful suggestions for the piece (they are praised more than critics). This research will focus on the lenses of theatrical critics and reviewers with their similarities and differences (as well as emphasize on some important Theatrical Critics and Reviewers). Then, based on this research, it will be put to the test as a playwright takes his previously produced play and use criticisms and reviews as a guide to recreating a play and bringing it back onto the stage. Once doing that, a survey will be conducted to see if the help of criticisms and/or reviews aided in the success of the newly revised play.

II. Purpose of the Study

Evaluating the differentiation of theatrical critiques and reviews are crucial in any artist...

... middle of paper ...

...fully assist in making the director change some things around in order to make their production more successful and sell more seats.

VI. Conclusion

Theatrical critics and reviewers have been thought of as the same occupation; however, they are two different types of jobs that help in making a production improve on its previous mistakes. In doing so, it creates a newly revised play that is meant to be successful for public consumption. It also creates the idea that critics and reviewers work together to give amazing feedback and bring together new ideas for a playwright/director to take and use to their advantage.

Works Cited

Cardullo, B. (2011). Person of the Drama: Stanley Kauffmann as Theater Critic. Sewanee Review, 119(3), 475-482.

Cardullo, B. (2011). Richard Gilman, American Theater Critic as Appreciation. Sewanee Review, 119(2), 288-295.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of The Spitfire Grill

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is imperative to understand the significance of the profound effects these elements have on the audience’s response to the play. Without effective and accurate embodiments of the central themes, seeing a play becomes an aimless experience and the meaning of the message is lost. Forgiveness and redemption stand as the central themes of the message in The Spitfire Grill. Actors communicate character development through both nonverbal and verbal cues; their costumes serve as a visual representation of this development by reflecting the personal transformation of each character. In the case of The Spitfire Grill, set design is cut back to allow for the audience’s primary focus to be on the actors and their story. Different from set design, the use of sound and lights in The Spitfire Grill, establishes the mood for the play. In other words, every theatrical element in a play has a purpose; when befittingly manipulated, these elements become the director’s strongest means of expressing central themes, and therefore a means of achieving set objectives. Here again, The Spitfire Grill is no exception. With the support of these theatrical elements, the play’s themes of forgiveness and redemption shine as bright as the moon on

    Read More

  • Harold Clurman's Theatre of Life

    2232 Words  | 5 Pages

    In Dialogue: Theatre of America, Harold Clurman said, “we make theatre out of life” (27), and it was precisely this view that motivated him to help create a uniquely American theatre. Clurman, considered one of the most influential directors of the modern American theatre, had a unique vision of what the American theatre could become. One of the founders of the quintessentially American troupe, the Group Theatre, Clurman was a contemporary of Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg, and even married to Stella Adler for twenty years. At a ceremony honoring Clurman, Elia Kazan stated that Clurman’s “greatest achievement [was] himself” (Harold Clurman: A Life of Theatre). An important figure in our theatrical past, Clurman’s theories on theatre and directing require close attention. In this paper, I will first provide a brief biography of Clurman, second, examine his theories of theatre and directing, and lastly, I will explore his criticisms of the then-contemporary theatre, and draw conclusions to the current state of the Broadway theatre.

    Read More

  • Gender Casting In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.

    Read More

  • Love is Close at Hand: The Age of Innocence

    1279 Words  | 3 Pages

    November 1998, written for FILM 220: Aspects of Criticism. This is a 24-week course for second-year students, examining methods of critical analysis, interpretation and evaluation. The final assignment was simply to write a 1000-word critical essay on a film seen in class during the final six-weeks of the course. Students were expected to draw on concepts they had studied over the length of the course.

    Read More

  • Narrative Method Of Rhetorical Criticism

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    A traditional method assumes that the criticism involves both explication of what actually went on when the speaker engaged his or her audience, and an evaluation of how well the speaker performed the task of changing the audiences’ perspective of reality. It is also assumed that the traditional method will create a feeling of identification and sense of relatedness between the speaker or writer and the

    Read More

  • Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America

    1423 Words  | 3 Pages

    At first glance, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America appear to serve as two individual exercises in the absurd. Varying degrees of the fantastical and bizarre drives the respective stories, and their respective conclusions hardly serve as logical resolutions to the questions that both Beckett and Kushner’s characters pose throughout the individual productions. Rather than viewing this abandonment of reality as the destination of either play, it should be seen as a method used by both Beckett and Kushner to force the audience to reconsider their preconceived notions when understanding the deeper emotional subtext of the plays. By presenting common and relatable situations such as love, loss, and the ways in which humans deal with change and growth, in largely unrecognizable packaging, Kushner and Beckett are able to disarm their audience amidst the chaos of the on stage action. Once the viewer’s inclination to make assumptions is stripped by the fantastical elements of either production, both playwrights provide moments of emotional clarity that the audience is forced to distill, analyze, and ultimately, comprehend on an individual level.

    Read More

  • Fantasy Theme Analysis Of Commercial

    1497 Words  | 3 Pages

    The criticism relies on two assumptions. One, that rhetoric creates reality, and two, that convergence occurs. With regards to rhetoric creating reality we are to assume that the symbolic forms that are created from the rhetoric are not imitations but organs of reality. This is because it is through their agency that anything becomes real. We assume to that convergence occurs because symbols not only create reality for individuals but that individual’s meanings can combine to create a shared reality for participants. The shared reality then provides a basis for the community of participants to discuss their common experiences and to achieve a mutual understanding. The consequence of this is that the individuals develop the same attitudes and emotions to the personae of the drama. Within this criticism the audience is seen as the most critical part because the sharing of the message is seen as being so significant.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Brecht On Theatre

    1078 Words  | 3 Pages

    Brecht argues that the ultimate purpose of play is to induce pleasure and to entertain, and that--because of this purpose--play needs no justification. Plays should not be simply copied from or seen through older performances, but need to develop on their own to better relate to a new audience. Through the use of alienation which aims to make the familiar unfamiliar, play and theatre can be seen under a new perspective, and the actor can feel more free to perform under a new guise.

    Read More

  • Holding The Attention Of The Audience In Othello

    1310 Words  | 3 Pages

    Topic 4: The playwright's primary task is to hold the audience's interest. Consider how this is achieved in Othello.

    Read More

  • Literature Review #2

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    The general overview of the subject matter in this article is that Cardullo provides more detailed information on the difference between a Theatrical Critic and a Reviewer. More especially, Cardullo gives a historical perspective on how Richard Gilman made an influence on American Theater as a Theatrical Critic. Based on his article, Cardullo mentions that the “point about reviewers is that they exist, consciously or not, to keep Broadway functioning within stated grounds. They preserve it as the arena for theatrical enterprises that may neither rise above an upper limit determined by a line stretching between the imaginations of Lillian Hellman, William Inge, and Richard Rodgers, nor sink beneath a lower one marked out by the inventiveness of and sense of life of Norman Krasna, Harry Kurnitz, and Garson Kanin” (Cardullo, 2011). This statement basically says that Theatrical reviewers are mean...

    Read More

  • Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

    1468 Words  | 3 Pages

    The essay Rosencrantz and Guildensternare Dead: Theater of Criticism by Normand Berlin draws attention to the fact that Stoppard who was once a drama critic, writes from the critical perspective. When engaged in a non-reflexive play, we are too busy following the movement of time and events to really judge the play, but Berlin writes "In the act of seeing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, however, our critical faculty is not subdued. We are always observing the characters and are not ourselves participating...we are forced to contemplate the frozen state, the status-quo, of the characters who carry their Shakespearean fates with them.". The grand illusion of theater is the acceptance of the on-stage fantasy as real and existing separate from the people who are actually performing it. Watching theater had classically been an experience separate from the experience of analyzing the piece. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the author keeps us hovering between the two states, we are at once participating in the fantasy but ...

    Read More

  • Peter Brook

    1450 Words  | 3 Pages

    On stage, these points were, looking at the opinions of a majority of both the audiences and the critics, presented successfully by Brook and the cast he worked with. From the prison guards who loomed in the background, clothed in butcher aprons and armed with clubs, to the half-naked Marat, slouched in a tub and covered in wet rags, forever scratching and writing, to the small group of singers, dressed and painted up as clowns, to the narcoleptic but murderous Charlotte Corday, Weiss and Brook offered a stage production that both engaged and amazed the audience, while at the same time forced them to question their role as the audience; no better exemplified than at the very end of the play, where the inmates, standing menacingly at the edge of the stage, actually begin to applaud the very people who applaud their performance, aggravating and confusing some, but forcing most t...

    Read More

  • A Career in Acting

    2226 Words  | 5 Pages

    and decide on the size, cost, and content of a production. They hire directors, principal

    Read More

  • All For Love Macbeth Analysis

    1819 Words  | 4 Pages

    Rabkin starts his third chapter by criticizing the way plays are criticized. He states that thematic criticism makes itself and literature part of the modern, educated world by making plays seem clearer and more plain than they actually are. The next group of plays to examine are Shakespeare’s tragedies, and the critical versions of them.

    Read More

  • Essay On Historical Criticism

    1564 Words  | 4 Pages

    Literature is an intricate art form. In order to attempt to understand the meanings and ideas within literary work, there are many forms of criticism that propose different approaches to its interpretation. Each criticism is crucial to the understanding of how individuals interpret literary works. Since each criticism has a different approach to enrich the understanding literary works, the question is raised whether one criticism should be used over others, whether a certain combination of criticisms should be used, or whether all criticisms should be taken into account. This may all be dependent on the reader’s individual preference or opinion, but each criticism presented builds on the others to create a well-rounded and unique understanding

    Read More

More about The Difference of How a Theatrical Critic and a Reviewer Look at a Performer

Open Document