Reviewing Ex Shows Discourages Innovation

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I cannot help but take exception at your decision to review productions staged at the Loeb Experimental Theatre (Ex), especially as your disclaimer suggests that you do so despite the wishes of Ex management. The very words of your defense should help you see why this practice endangers the "free dramatic experimentation" you consider such a "noble aim."

You claim to review Ex shows "to offer a forum for discussion of these innovative works." Admirable. But, as you admit, "[t]he reviews are the perceptions and critiques solely of the writer," any any substantial response in your pages is unlikely. Does a single opinion constitute a "discussion"? How are your reviews a forum for anyone but your arts staff? The best true forum for discussion, the conversation of theatre-goers, has been thriving for some time without your help. The written monologues of reviewers, aimed at readers who have not seen the production, can never replace the dialogue of those who have.

You also offer to "inform readers of [the productions'] content." While underscoring your slant toward those who have not seen the production, this statement implies that a summary of "contents" is a substitue or supplement to actually seeing the performance. Plot summary, which takes up roughly a quarter of Adam Pachter's Endgame review, provides nothing more than theatrical Cliff's Notes, inadequate for readers who haven't seen the show, and redundant for those who have. If plot summary allowed you to understand two hours of performance, then drama would never have been invented, and Shakespeare would have been a pamphleteer.

In fact, your desire to relate the content of the plays reveals that discussion of "innovative" interpretations is not the actual aim of your reviews. They are designed rather to tell the reader if the show is worth his or her time, and what to expect when the lights go up. This perfectly all right, but it is not the in-depth discussion you propose.

To weight the merits of an experimental production, a reviewer would need, firstly, more than 18 inches of space, and secondly, a familiarity with the text and the tradition of the play's performance, so that the reviewer knows what is experimental abou the new performance. (Such knowledge might have helped Caroline Chaffin recognize the As You Like It sequence in Straight lines, which she is "not sure" she saw. It was the part where the actors began to speak in blank verse and then introduced themselves as characters from As You Like It.)

Naturally, an undergraduate reviewer cannot be expected to possess the depth of knowledge necessary to recognize departures from convention every week and then to analyze them. They must restrict themselves to the honorable trade of college reviewers: helping readers decide how to spend the weekend. Pachter spends virtually all of his review relating (1) what Beckett plays are like to watch (i.e. unconventional, disturbing), and (2) how the actors were to watch He gives two scant sentences to the director's choices. He never hints at issues of staging or interpretation, such as the show's conformity with or departures from Beckett's original directions. He only tells us whether or not the show is enjoyable, and what kind of pleasure it affords.

This is all well and good for most theater but not for an experiment. Such reviews are read in order to know what to expect at the threatre; experiments rely on challenging expectations. A review can only succeed in imposing a preconception, the reviewer's inevitably sketchy and subjective remarks, which can interfere with the audience's perceptions of the actual experience.

Reviews designed to encourage or discourage attendance have the further ill effect of making the productions dependent on the reviewer's opinions. No one should shy away from the Ex because one reviewer disliked an experiment, nor should newer, less secure actors and actresses hesitate about accepting a role for fear of being pilloried in print for their director's risktaking. Freedom from expectations, a willingness to be surprised, is the price of admissions to the Ex, a fair exchange for the free ticket.

Your reviews only jeopardize that freedom, and cannot, within the space allotted, any any true insight into the "innovative works" you hope to promote interest in. The format of a brief newspaper review, as a guide for the theater-goer, is ideal for the more commercial productions in the houses, or at the Mainstage and Agassiz, but in the name of your own intent, do not become faulty guides to the Ex, where the audience members' greatest delight is in finding their own way. James J. Marino '91